


Tulip's Visit

by Kujo1597



Series: Off the Train [5]
Category: Infinity Train (Cartoon)
Genre: Gen, His name is Peter, I linked to the fanart now, If you read Night and Day you'll know two of them, Lake has a pet jumping spider, Nonbinary Lake, Post-Canon, There's going to be a handful of one-off OCs, Tulip is dating Mikayla but they're only communicating through texts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-23
Updated: 2020-10-03
Packaged: 2021-03-04 17:36:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 42,927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25470241
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kujo1597/pseuds/Kujo1597
Summary: One year after Lake and Jesse paid her a visit in Minnesota Tulip is now allowed to fly on her own and spend some time with them in Arizona. The two are determined to show her the best time that they can in just three short days.In blistering 100 degree heat because it's the deserty part of the state.
Relationships: Jesse Cosay & Lake (Infinity Train), Jesse Cosay & Tulip Olsen, Tulip Olsen & Lake (Infinity Train)
Series: Off the Train [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1758598
Comments: 46
Kudos: 59





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> For the sake of clarity I decided to slightly change the format of the text messages. The ones Tulip receives are now in square brackets along with the italics.

Tulip’s plane touched down in Arizona and she went through the annoying process of going through the airport. This was her first flight all alone. She sent a few texts confirming her arrival, a couple to her parents, one to Mikayla, and one to Lake to be passed onto their mom.

Before Tulip boarded her plane in Minnesota she had made plans with Lake to meet them and Jesse at a café across the street from the airport. Tulip sent Lake another text once she arrived at it. It was just a weekend trip so Tulip didn’t have much luggage with her.

“Hey Tulip!”

She heard Lake greeting her.

“Hey welcome to Arizona,” Lake opened their arms up to offer Tulip a hug.

And of course Tulip accepted it. “It’s so good to see you again!”

“Tulip!” Jesse was the next to greet her, and walked up to her with his arms outstretched.

“Jesse!” She copied his greeting and returned his hug too.

Then Tulip craned her neck up to make eye-contact with him.

“I know right,” Lake poked Jesse in the shoulder with their thumb. “He just keeps getting taller I barely come up to his shoulder now. It's annoying. C'mon, share some height with the rest of us!”

“Yeah Jesse,” Tulip decided to tease him a little too.

“Yeah buddy quit hogging it all!” Lake heckled Jesse with a smirk.

“I can't believe you two are bullying me for being a growing boy,” Jesse wiped away a fake tear.

Tulip patted Jesse’s shoulder. “Worst part is, you’re still not even tall.”

“I know,” Jesse slumped, although it didn’t last long. “But seriously, it _is_ great to see you again. I can’t say we have much catching up to do since y’know, we talk a lot already. But man,” Jesse pulled Lake under his arm with a smile, “we’re gonna show you a good time.”

“Heh, yeah, we have some plans for you,” Lake said. “Ah, but first we should meet up with my mom. She’s kinda waiting. If you want we can pop in and get you a snack or a drink though. I’m sure that’d be fine.”

“I’m good, thanks,” Tulip turned down the offer.

“Alright then, here, I can carry your suitcase if you want,” Jesse extended his hand with his offer.

“Thanks,” Tulip gave her suitcase to Jesse.

The three walked just over to where Whittney had parked, she was reading a book and Jesse called to her through the window. She popped open the trunk and unlocked the doors. Jesse dropped off the suitcase while Lake and Tulip shuffled into the car, then he joined them.

“Hello Tulip, it’s nice to see you again,” Whittney said, at first she tried to look at Tulip in the rear-view mirror but couldn’t see her; so she turned in her seat instead.

“Nice to see you too,” Tulip returned the greeting. “Thanks for letting me stay with you.”

“Oh it’s no problem,” Whittney waved it off. “Right now my husband is inflating your air mattress. You’ll be set up in no time.”

“Oh yeah,” Tulip pulled out her phone. “Can I take a picture with you guys?”

“Sure,” Lake replied with a shrug. Jesse said the same thing but with a smile.

Tulip took a selfie with Jesse and Lake then sent it to her mom and dad. “I promised my parents that I’ll take a ton of pictures for them. I had to do the same thing at game design camp.”

“I guess that makes sense,” Lake watched Tulip as she sent her texts, they tried their best to not look at the message itself; people give people privacy. “It’s been so long though since the train.”

“To be fair, this was my first time flying alone.”

“Oh. Well that makes a little more sense.”

“Yeah. But I’m sure the train has something to do with it too. My parents aren’t as worried as they used to be but well. Five months is five months.”

“That is a _really_ long time,” Jesse said.

“Exactly.”

* * *

“Woah,” Tulip spoke in quiet awe when she got out of the car and saw a lake. “When you said you lived near a lake. I didn’t think you meant it was just across the street from you.”

“I know right, it’s nice,” Lake said.

“You three can look at the lake,” Whittney said. “If it’s alright with Tulip I can drop her luggage off in Lake’s room.”

“Sure,” Tulip took off her backpack and passed it to Whittney. “Thanks.”

“It’s not sunset yet but the lake is always really pretty,” Jesse said as he started to walk off towards it leading Lake and Tulip.

It was just a quick hop across the street.

“Wow,” Tulip stared at the water taking it all in.

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Lake said. “This was the first sight I saw after I got off the train.”

“It’s a good first sight,” Tulip said, she took out her phone and took a few pictures to send to her loved ones.

“Want a quick selfie?” Jesse asked, he already had his phone out. “I can send it to you so you can pass it to everybody you’ve been texting.”

“I was just about to ask,” Tulip put away her own phone and posed with Jesse and Lake. A couple pictures got taken and Jesse got Tulip’s approval before forwarding them to her. “Mikayla already messaged me back. She’s pretty jealous right now.”

Lake chuckled. “Maybe she can visit sometime. That’d be nice, I had fun hanging out with her last year.”

“Has it been a year already?” Jesse wondered out loud. “Time really flies.”

“It really does,” Lake said as they picked up a flat stone, they skipped it across the lake. “I find it kinda nice though. It’s better than time just crawling along with nothing to do.”

“That’s true,” Tulip decided to skip a stone too. It didn’t make it as far as Lake’s did. “I don’t think I had it as bad as you. But wow, did some of those nights feel slow.”

Jesse skipped his own stone, he blushed. “Yeah, I honestly have nothing to add. I’ve always been really busy.”

“It’s because you join every club you can,” Lake said with a laugh. “I actually asked mom about that once and she said you’ve always been like that. I don’t know how you do it. I can barely handle the one club I’m in. But I’m also still not a huge fan of people.”

“You aren’t?” Tulip didn’t sound too surprised; Lake barely talked about their friends.

“Nah, I have a whole five school friends and that’s including Jesse,” Lake said. “I get along with people fine enough, but I can’t say I’d be too jazzed about hanging out with most of them more than I have to. You know?”

“I get that,” Tulip said with a shrug. “Can’t say there’s a ton of people other than Mikayla I make plans with. Sometimes my science club all hangs out but other than that…”

“Hey Tulip,” Jesse got her attention. “Do you ever go bowling with your friends?”

Lake gave Jesse a ‘really’ look, it was such a clunky way of asking about their plans.

“Yeah, bowling’s fun,” Tulip replied.

“Awesome,” Jesse pumped his fist. “Because I was thinking that we could all go bowling. You, me, Lake, and some of our friends. You’ll like them. They got the elusive Lake Seal of Approval.”

“Wooow,” Tulip sounded a touch more sarcastic than she intended. “That’s really selling me on them.”

“Shut up,” Lake said with a giggle. “I like people _a little bit_ more than that.”

“But going back to my question,” Jesse said. “Would you be up for that?”

“Sure,” Tulip replied. “It’ll be fun. So that’s going to be tomorrow?”

“Yeah, tomorrow, after lunch probably,” Jesse gave things some thought. “I haven’t set an exact time yet in case that plan didn’t work for you.”

“It works, I’m looking forward to it,” Tulip said as she looked out at the lake some more.

The three stared out at the lake and talked for a while before deciding to head into the Cosay home. Not before Lake shouted “c’mon growing boy” to Jesse.

“Hello Tulip,” Stephan greeted her with a smile. “Good to see you again.”

“Good to see you too,” Tulip said, she looked around. “Where’s Nate?”

“He’s over at a friend’s house,” Stephan replied. “He’ll be back before dinner.”

“Alright, cool,” Tulip said.

“So how about I show you around?” Lake offered. “You’re staying here for a few days, you should probably know where everything is.”

“Sure,” Tulip took Lake up on their offer.

“Jesse, you coming with?” Lake asked.

“Alright,” Jesse said his face lit up. “Let’s start the grand tour!”

“Well,” Lake shrugged, “it’s really not all that grand.”

They all walked off; Lake and Jesse pointed out all the rooms to Tulip starting with the main floor. When the passed the garage Lake and Jesse shared a couple funny stories. The group headed upstairs.

“Alright, Jesse’s room, Nate’s room, and my room,” Lake pointed to them as they went past. “If you want we can pop in there so you can get all set up. Might as well kill some time before dinner.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Tulip said.

“Alright, while you two do that, I’m gonna head downstairs and see if my dad wants help with dinner,” Jesse said.

“‘Kay, bye,” Lake waved at Jesse and he walked off.

Tulip entered Lake's surprisingly tidy and organized room after them. She saw the standard things she expected like a dresser, a desk with some figures on it, and some posters. She had seen parts of Lake's room in video chats, and was curious about what Lake kept pulling photos off of. Turns out it was some corkboard hanging on their wall, much like Tulip had.

Lake squealed in a way the reminded Tulip of when they first got out of The Chrome Car.

“You finally get to meet Peter!” Lake walked up to their desk, and next to a thermometer there was a plastic container with some sticks and leaves, fake flowers, and other things in it.

“Oh yeah,” Tulip joined Lake. “Your pet spider. He's a cutie.”

“Isn't he?” Lake scanned Peter's enclosure and spotted him doing his little dance on the biggest stick. They gently opened the enclosure and spoke in a very sweet voice. “Hey there Peter, I have a friend over for the next little bit. I want you to meet her.”

Lake put their hand next to Peter and even with his missing leg he easily jumped onto Lake's hand without hesitation. They smiled fondly as Peter crawled around. And then told Tulip to put her hand near Peter. She did and he jumped on it.

“He's so cute, look at that little face,” Tulip shifted to a baby voice halfway through the sentence. “I'm curious, how do you know he's a boy?”

“You see how it looks like Peter's wearing little boxing gloves? That means he's a boy.”

“Huh,” Tulip took a closer look. “Hey those do look like boxing gloves.”

“Is it cool if I take a picture of you holding Peter and send it to your mom?”

“Go for it,” Tulip passed her phone to Lake, being careful to not disturb Peter.

“Thanks,” Lake took the picture and texted:

|Isn't Peter just the cutest little spider? -L|

“Megan's not afraid of spiders, is she?” Lake asked, they were starting to feel jealous so they put their hand next to Peter and he went back to Lake.

“Nah,” Tulip replied. “So how often do you feed him?”

“Usually every couple days or so but lately Peter’s been pretty hungry so I’ve been feeding him every day. And cool. Jesse's a little afraid of spiders as it turns out. He's a good sport and will watch me as I play with Peter and I feed him and stuff. But won't let Peter jump on him.”

“How could anyone be afraid of the little guy?” Tulip walked over to her backpack and started to unpack. “He's so tiny and adorable.”

“Beats me. Nate really likes Peter though it's been fun bonding over taking care of him. I've even gotten Nate to feed him a couple times.”

“Nice.” Tulip's phone buzzed and she pulled it out and read the text, she laughed. “Yeah my mom could immediately tell you were the one who sent that last text.”

Lake's heart fluttered, that was a major sign that they were fully unique from Tulip. Lake decided to put Peter back in his enclosure. “See you later Peter, you're getting something good tomorrow.” Lake turned to Tulip. “Well, it's the same thing he gets every feeding day. But I'm not sure he knows that. He _is_ a spider.”

After a little wave to their pet Lake lied down on their bed and read as Tulip got settled.

She pulled a bag out of her backpack and put it on the desk.

Lake looked over from their bed and made a face. “Seriously Tulip, you’re putting a bag of onions on my desk?”

“Well, yeah,” Tulip shrugged. “Where else can I put it?”

Lake pinched the bridge of their nose. “Okay let me rephrase this. Seriously Tulip, you brought a bag of onions with you?”

“You brought snacks with you when you visited, right?”

“Yeah, but it was stuff I picked up at the gas station, you know, Corn Nuts, Corn Chips, and candy, and stuff. Onions are just so weird!”

“I like onions. You know that. They’re my Corn Nuts.”

“Oh my god Tulip you’re such a weirdo. How did I turn out so normal?”

“Now you're just exaggerating,” Tulip smirked. “You like some pretty weird stuff too. I've _seen_ the abominations you and Jesse have made in the kitchen.”

“Look,” Lake sat up and put their book down. “Those were bets with Nate. He handed us random shit to put together and if me and Jesse ate it then he would do some of our chores.”

“Isn't Nate like, ten or something?”

“He just turned eleven. Anyway, how could I pass that up? Vacuuming up the floor sucks.”

Tulip made the face at Lake, you know the one. They were tempted to throw a pillow at her, but Lake didn't want to risk hitting Peter's enclosure.

“NO! Don't- I know what I said, stop making that face. I swear, you and Jesse both!”

“Hey you like puns too. You have a tag on Tumblr dedicated to them. AND DAD JOKES!”

Lake grumbled, they had no retort. It was completely true. “Well at least you don't do that annoying voice some people do when they tell bad puns.”

“Nah, subtlety is the real key to making people groan.”

“Yeah, because it takes a second for them to get it, and then it hits where it hurts,” Lake added with a grin.

“Exactly!” Tulip grinned back.

“You wanna sit in here and kill some time?” Lake asked after Tulip finished unpacking, they patted their bed. “I can’t exactly call this bed comfy for a human; it’s pretty hard. But you’ll live.”

“How long until dinner’s done?” Tulip asked, but she did sit next to Lake anyway.

“My dad’s barbecuing tonight, he’s just starting. So let’s say a half-hour or so,” Lake replied.

“Cool, what’s he making?”

“Some burgers, hot dogs, and he also wanted to make chicken breasts too but I convinced him not to. He wanted to do a variety of things to make sure you’d have something you like.”

“That’s nice of him.”

“Me and Jesse have big appetites so don’t worry about there being a lot of food. And my family’s not against eating leftovers.”

Tulip couldn’t hold in her giggle. “I remember how much you ate at the picnic.”

“And that’s just what I ate away from the table.”

“Hey…” Tulip looked serious. “So we don’t have to do this now, but I have something kinda serious I want to talk to you about, and just you because you know me better than anyone.”

Lake took their reading glasses off and put them on the side table along with their book. “We have time. If you want to talk about it now we can.”

“Well, it’s not bad or anything,” Tulip rubbed the back of her neck. “Just weird I guess. My dad started dating recently and I’m not sure how I feel about it.”

“Ah I see,” Lake sat up. “I don’t think I can give you any advice or anything.”

“That’s fine, I just wanted to talk about it. But not to my mom because I think that would be _really_ weird.”

“True. So… has your dad introduced you to any of his dates?”

“Yeah, his most recent girlfriend. She’s nice. I-I like her but. It’s weird coming to his house and seeing her.”

“Oh, is she living with him?”

“No. They aren’t that far along yet. She just visits sometimes.” Tulip sighed. “I don’t know why I brought it up.”

“Nah it’s fine,” Lake smiled softly. “At this point half my therapy sessions are spent talking about stuff that’s going on in my life, and things that might be troubling me. It’s good to talk. And I’m glad you’re doing it now.”

“You know, I’m happy for my dad, he seems happy,” Tulip said. “I’m just going to have to get used him being with somebody other than my mom.”

“Has your mom starting dating again?”

“As far as I know, no. She’s too busy.”

“Yeah that makes sense. That was one of the bigger strains on her marriage with your dad.”

“It was?” That was the first Tulip had heard about it.

“Uh, yep. I guess unlike you I actually heard the arguments. I suppose her and Andy’s reflections didn’t get the memo that it was quiet yelling.”

“Oh man, I’m sorry Lake. Did the reflections of my parents ever… apologize to you?”

“Ah it’s fine. It was practically ages ago. And no, they never did apologize; they were doing their job, and I was doing mine. We had that understanding.”

Lake shifted. “Anyway, I’m glad your dad is happy. And… if you ever want to talk about anything, not just this. I’ll be there for you. Okay?”

Lake looked Tulip softly in the eyes and put their hand on her shoulder.

“Thanks,” Tulip smiled. “I appreciate it. So what’s going on with you?”

“Nothing much,” Lake lied down with their hands behind their head. “You already know what games I’ve been playing, and I’ve been doing my homework when I’m not playing games. I am looking forward to bowling though. A couple of my friends will be there.”

“Really?” Tulip perked up. “You never talk about your friends, I’m excited to meet them.”

“Do I seriously not talk about them? I should probably fix that,” Lake cleared their throat getting ready to talk for a little while. “Me and Ally had art class together my first year in school. She really helped me learn. We’ve had a couple more classes together since then but most of our time together at school is during lunch. And for some stupid reason I have to be in gym class, but I did meet Camille there. She actually didn’t think much of me being metal which was cool. We have English class together and well, this is kind of embarrassing but she’s kinda saving my ass. Camille grew up in France so English is her second language but she picks up the rules and their billion exceptions faster than me. But we also have chemistry together and I’ve been saving her there so I guess we’re even.”

“Do you guys ever hang out when you’re not at school?” Tulip found herself pretty interested.

“Yeah of course,” Lake replied. “We play video games, and somehow ended up as sort of a book club I guess. So we talk about what we’re reading. Wow. We… are huge nerds.”

Tulip laughed. “You know including me and Jesse I think all of your friends are nerds.”

Lake sighed. “I’m glad I’ve finally come to terms with that fact. But seriously! When I was finally starting to think about making friends I had people entirely different in mind. But I ended up meshing well with nerds and dorks. Jesse’s friends he’s inviting are also pretty nerdy. I like them. They’re the first people outside of you and my family I met. Well… met _and_ liked.”

“I thought you liked Atticus.”

“I do, but I never actually _met_ him. He was too busy helping fight the flecs to meet me. And afterwards I was too busy exploring that Pencil Business Car to introduce myself to him. Plus well… at the time I didn’t even know who I was.”

Tulip's eyes drifted down.

“What's wrong?” Lake asked.

“I just wish things turned out better between you and One-One,” Tulip replied with hesitation.

“Oh... you figured out that I don’t like him. It’s fine, really. Jesse has some friends I’d really prefer to never see. It happens.”

“I guess… A part of me wonders what happened between you two, but I’ll also respect your privacy,” Tulip fidgeted with her hands.

“It’s not really a privacy thing…” Lake ran their fingers through their fluffy mohawk. “I-I just worry that if I tell you what went down between me and One-One it’ll ruin the way you feel about him... Y’know?”

“It’s okay,” Tulip took a breath. “I still have all my good memories of him, and being friends with him. But he also hurt another friend of mine and I know that. I guess I just kind of want to know how he hurt you.”

“Well,” Lake pulled their knees to their chest. “You know how I had to reflect Jesse’s number on my hand to trick One-One into giving me an exit. Well, leading up to it One-One refused to do anything to give me a number, I told him that I’d be willing to do anything to get one. But One-One didn’t give me it because he thought I was really good at helping people, and he considered me a denizen of the train. It hurt in all honesty, especially because he said that the train is where I belong and that was when Sieve was still trying to kill me.” Lake sighed. “It also hurt because at that point everything in The Tape Car and The Number Car was acting as if I didn’t even exist. And there was lots of stuff on the train that treated me as if I was a lesser person because I wasn’t a passenger. It just builds up, like making a snowman.”

“Or that expression about the straw that broke the camel’s back,” Tulip added. “It’s just a piece of straw, but the camel was already carrying a ton of weight and it was enough to put him over the limit.”

“Exactly,” Lake looked fatigued. “And well, it didn’t _help_ that when Jesse’s number glitched out Sieve suggested that One-One should let me get killed to give Jesse a more solvable problem. And One-One considered it.”

“What!” Tulip glared. “Okay that is crossing a major line.”

“In One-One’s defense, he is a robot, and the train would have an easier time helping Jesse manage his grief.”

“I dunno Lake, it sure didn’t help Amelia with hers.”

“Huh,” Lake started to tear up. “I didn’t expect you to be so outraged on my behalf.”

“Of course I am,” Tulip put her hands on Lake’s shoulders. “You’re my friend, and even if it did work better for the train’s own logic, it still wouldn’t have been right to let Sieve kill you. I’m so sorry Lake. You shouldn’t have had to go through that.”

Lake inhaled with a snuffle and Tulip offered them a hug which was quickly accepted.

“Thank you for telling me about One-One,” Tulip said.

“I feel bad because he was so good to you,” Lake’s words were muffled. “He was doing his job as conductor.”

“Oh no, you’re not giving him that out,” Tulip broke off the hug and looked Lake right in the eyes. “Yes he is a robot, and yes, he was acting according to some of his programming. But he still hurt you.”

Lake’s stomach did a flip. “Yeah… but I can’t help feeling guilty for ruining One-One for you.”

“Since when did you feel so much guilt?” Tulip quirked an eyebrow.

“Therapy,” Lake stated simply. “I’ve gotten more in touch with feelings other than rage. I mean, we still need to work on how to manage these strange new feelings. It’s a process.”

“It’s good that you’re getting help. But seriously, you don’t need to feel so guilty, I don’t want you to. I’m glad you told me what happened.”

“How… are you feeling about One-One now?”

“I need some time to digest things if I’m being honest.”

“That’s understandable.”

“So,” Tulip gave Lake a pat on the shoulder. “It’s been twenty-something minutes. If you’re feeling up to it, you wanna head downstairs?”

Lake wiped their eyes. “Yeah, I’m calm enough. How are you holding up?”

“Pretty decent,” Tulip replied as she stood up. “I’m looking forward to your dad’s barbecuing.”

“Meh, I don’t think it’s anything special,” Lake slid off their bed. “It’s good, don’t get me wrong. But I don’t want you overhyping yourself.”

The two continued to talk as they headed outside.

“You know my dad chars everything,” Tulip chuckled.

“That he does. My first properly cooked burger was absolutely stunning, amazing even.”

“Maybe I should beg my dad to start setting a timer. That might help.”

“It couldn’t hurt,” Lake shrugged. “You’d think he’d be better at cooking now that he lives alone.”

“But nah,” Tulip added what Lake was just about to.

Lake snorted.

“Hi Tulip!” Nate interrupted the conversation with a beaming smile.

“Hi Nate, wow looks like Jesse’s not the only one who did some growing,” Tulip only had to look down at Nate slightly.

“I know, Nate’s almost as tall as me now,” Lake sounded like a proud older sibling.

“I think I was always almost as tall as you,” Nate said.

“What gives you the right to make short jokes about me?” Lake decided to retract their pride. “At least wait until you’re taller than me you little butt.”

Nate laughed. “So give it until the end of the year.”

“Ugh, go see if mom needs anything,” Lake pointed at Whittney.

“Alright, talk to you later,” Nate gave Tulip a cheerful wave goodbye before running off.

“Man, I’m starting think I might have been a bad influence on him, he used to be so sweet…” Lake put their hands behind their head with a pout.

Tulip found herself still cracking up over the exchange.

“Anyway, where was I?” Lake tried to regain their train of thought. “Oh yeah, I don’t understand what’s so hard about following a recipe. I mean, we do it in foods class.”

“Right, you’re still taking that, you really liked Home Ec, didn’t you?” Tulip was still barely able to contain her snickers.

“Yeah I liked the cooking part of it, the sewing… not so much,” Lake finally noticed Tulip’s expression. “Oh come on, it’s not even that funny.”

“It’s not,” Tulip gave in. “It’s really not. But it was cute seeing you with your little brother. He’s shaping up to be a total smartass, you should be proud.”

“Honestly, I don’t know what I’d do if both my brothers were complete goody two-shoes. I’d probably go crazy. Just one Jesse is enough.”

“Hmmm…” Tulip imagined a second, smaller Jesse. “Yeah I see what you mean. That would be a handful.”

“What would be a handful?” Jesse’s ears were burning.

“Having two of you around,” Lake answered truthfully.

“Ah, yeah that would be,” Jesse pretended to think. “Oh yeah! Tulip, I talked to my friends and they’re definitely up for bowling tomorrow after lunch.”

“Have you talked to Ally and Camille?” Lake asked. “Or should I go and do that?”

“Nah I got ya, I know my little sib,” Jesse replied with a wink. “I figured once you and Tulip went into your room you’d be too distracted by Peter to remember.”

“Yeah, you know me well,” Lake decided to not tell Jesse the real reason they hadn’t done it.

This didn’t go completely unnoticed to Tulip.

“Dinner’s done,” Stephan called out.

Everybody gathered around him giving him their thanks and grabbing food.

“You know what you should do,” Nate was just talking in general. “Hamdogger.”

“What’s a hamdogger?” Tulip asked.

“It’s a hot dog on top of a hamburger,” Nate replied.

And Tulip now caught a glimpse into the weird food bets that go on in the Cosay family.

Jesse and Lake exchanged a glance, they both had a hot dog and hamburger on their plates.

“It’d be a waste of a bun though,” Jesse said.

“Not for me,” Lake said with a smug expression, they didn’t particularly care for hot dog buns. “I’m doing it!”

Jesse mulled it over some more. “You can have this one.”

“But before I do it, what’s in it for me?” Lake said, then the pointed at Tulip. “You know, besides grossing Tulip out. Because you’re already dusting everything.”

“It’s not that gross,” Tulip’s face betrayed her. “Just weird.”

“Well, I can vacuum for you again,” Nate said after some thought.

“Sorry bud, that’s Jesse’s job this week.”

As Nate thought, and thought Lake glanced over at Tulip again.

“Now that I think about it, Tulip’s reaction _is_ worth it,” Lake still had their massive soft spot for Nate at the end of the day.

So much to Nate’s amusement Lake put their hotdog onto their hamburger and took a bite.

Everybody finished dinner to lively chatter.

* * *

After dinner, and gameshow watching with the entire Cosay family the kids decided to have a little Smash night. Tulip had played Smash Ultimate a few times at some friends’ houses so she didn’t need an introduction.

“Aw Lake, have some mercy,” Jesse said as soon as Lake picked their character.

“Sheik’s not even my main, calm down,” Lake said. “If I _really_ wanted to be mean I’d pick one of the Dragon Quest heroes.”

Tulip thought long and hard about who she should pick. She hadn’t played enough of the game to be dedicated to any character in particular. So she did random select.

“You’ve got guts,” Jesse said. “I’ll play that game with you. Unlike Lake I’m not cruel.”

Lake gave Jesse a little glare after he picked random and Nate picked his character.

“I think I’m going to go with Captain Falcon; Lake’s Sheik is mean,” he said.

Before the match started Tulip took a picture of the family she was staying with and texted it to her mom with “playing videogames now dont ask me how Lake is seeing the TV from that angle.” The games was pure chaos as a fun casual Smash match usually was. After a couple fights Lake and Nate decided to switch over to random select too which only added to the chaotic fun.

A few more battles later and Lake's phone rang and they answered it fairly quickly.

“Hello? Oh. Uh... well,” Lake rubbed the back of their neck. “I have a friend visiting from out of town. Can we do it any other day? No? Fuck.”

Lake rubbed their eyes then walked out of the room while saying, “I guess it is only for an hour.”

Tulip looked over at Jesse, her face showing her confusion.

“Well,” Jesse said. “Lake usually only answers their phone that fast for either family or their therapist.”

“Son of a gun,” Lake came back into the room and plopped down next to Jesse with their arms crossed and a sour expression. “So my appointment got rescheduled to tomorrow morning. I understand that things happen but that timing really sucked.”

“Hey don't worry about it, I'll take good care of Tulip,” Jesse looked confident.

Lake sighed. “It's not that. I was just looking forward to Tulip's visit. And now I have a therapy session I barely even need. I picked the original date for a reason.”

“It's fine,” Tulip assured Lake. “It's not like I'm only in town for one day. We'll spend plenty of time together.”

“I guess,” Lake puffed out their cheeks. “Oh yeah, before I forget I should tell my mom things got rescheduled.”

With that Lake got back off the couch and headed upstairs.

“Well, with Lake’s rescheduled appointment we should figure out something to do while they’re away,” Jesse said. “So, how do you feel about roller-skating?”

“Roller-skating?” Tulip found herself confused.

“Yeah see, when me and Lake watched Bismuth Casual together I kinda got in the mood, but Lake is… too heavy as it turns out. And the episode was on again recently and I’m back in the mood.”

“I can’t believe roller-rinks are still a thing,” Tulip laughed. “But yeah, I’ll give it a shot. I can ice-skate so I should be able to roller-skate, right?”

“Nice,” Jesse pumped his fist. “I was so bummed I couldn’t go with Lake.”

It then hit Jesse how that might’ve sounded.

“Oh no, sorry Tulip, I hope you don’t think I’m using you as a backup Lake,” Jesse looked genuinely sorry.

“What? It’s alright, that didn’t even cross my mind,” Tulip was taken by surprise. “You were just talking about how your show got that back on your mind.”

Jesse’s guilt lessened. “I guess I just worry about that sort of thing because I know Lake. And how much it bothers them when they’re talked about like a lesser you. I suppose that wouldn’t necessarily be a two-way thing.”

“You don’t have to worry so much,” Tulip raised an eyebrow in a way that was very reminiscent of a certain former-reflection. “Half the time I forget Lake used to be my reflection. We’re so different now.”

“That’s very true. If I didn’t know any better I’m not sure I’d even be able to tell without looking closely.”

“I wouldn’t go _that_ far. We do have the same face.”

“Your face is a _little_ thinner than Lake’s,” Jesse was surprisingly detail-oriented. “They have really cute kinda chubby cheeks. Especially when they puff ‘em out. Obviously you used to too but not as much now. I’ve also never seen you get all grumpy and pouty like Lake does.”

Tulip had no response. No part of her expected Jesse to go that into detail, and he practically had hearts in his eyes too.

Fortunately Lake had returned before Tulip had to actually think about what to say.

“Hey, I’m ready to get back to our Smash night,” Lake said as they went back into their previous position of leaning on Jesse.

“You know I think I know who I wanna stick with,” Tulip said. “So we can start using our favourite characters if you want.”

“Oh you’re going down!” Lake immediately perked up with a malicious smile. “I’ve been dying to use my boy Octavio all night.”

“Octavio?” Tulip tried her best to remember a character with that name.

“That’s what Lake named their character in Dragon Quest VIII,” Nate decided to explain it. “They named their character in XI, Leven. Which apparently means life in Dutch or something.”

“I like trying to work in the number somehow, it’s fun,” Lake said. “But for the first couple games I went with the drama CD names.”

“Huh, you really got into the Dragon Quest series, didn’t you?” Tulip said.

“Uh, yep. I kinda got into RPGs in general because I wasn’t in school so I had plenty of time on my hands. The first game I played on my own was Pokémon Sword and that got me hooked.”

“Oh yeah. Didn’t you catch a Yamper and name it Atticus?”

“I did!” Lake was surprised Tulip even knew that. “But then he evolved and stopped being a corgi.”

“He became Irwin instead,” Tulip giggled.

“Irwin?”

“You weren’t there for that! That’s right! Corginia has four-hundred dogs in it, and one of them is called ‘Ugly Irwin’ and he’s not a corgi. He’s like, a golden retriever or something.”

Lake held back a chuckle. “Aw poor Irwin. Retrievers are cute too.”

“Irwin was _very_ majestic.”

“I’m sure he was.”

The group got back to playing their game while chatting about random things. They mostly stuck to their favourite characters, and Jesse was right, Lake’s Dragon Quest Hero was pretty cruel. But they had the heart to not target Tulip any more than either of their brothers.

After a couple hours it was time for everybody to get ready for bed.

Tulip got off of the couch and pulled out her phone to give her dad a call. She made an agreement with him to talk on the first night just so he could hear her voice and be positive she was safe.

“Is it alright if I sit outside?” Tulip asked while pointing at her phone.

“Yeah go for it,” Lake replied with a shrug.

“Thanks,” Tulip opened the back door and sat down on the deck, she dialed her dad’s number. He picked up. “Hey dad.”

_“Hi Bud, thanks for calling. How’re things going?”_

“Great. Lake’s family is crazy-nice. We had hot dogs, and hamburgers for dinner. Lake told me their dad was also going to make chicken breasts just to be sure there was something I liked.” Tulip laughed.

_“Are you all settled already?”_

“I am. I’m sleeping on an air mattress in Lake’s room. It used to be the guest bedroom. I also met Peter.”

_“Peter?”_

“Lake’s pet spider. You know, Peter, as in Peter Parker.”

_“I see,” Tulip could hear a chuckle from Andy. “I’m surprised you’re calling so late.”_

“Yeah sorry about that,” Tulip cringed. “We kinda lost track of time while playing video games. I hope I didn’t wake you up.”

_“Don’t worry, you didn’t. But I should be heading to bed soon. Thanks again for calling. I know I’m asking you to do a lot.”_

“It’s not that bad. And I get it. I love you dad.”

_“I love you too Bud. Goodnight.”_

“Night.”

Tulip hung up then put her phone back in her pocket. She walked upstairs and into Lake’s room.

“That was fast,” Lake was already in their pajamas and scrolling through Twitter with a squint.

“I caught my dad right before he was going to bed,” Tulip said. “Is everybody in bed already?”

“Pretty much, yeah,” Lake put on their reading glasses and grabbed their book from earlier. “Jesse’s just saying goodnight to our parents. He’ll pop in here and say goodnight to us too.”

“Do you think I have time to change?”

“You should.”

“Um, hm,” Tulip paused to think. “Should I do it in the bathroom?”

“I mean, do what makes you comfortable,” Lake’s eyes left their book. “But I feel like you changing around me is one of those things that’s only weird if we make it weird. I mean...”

Lake gestured at their metal body.

“Fair point,” Tulip shuffled.

“Alright, I’ll go back to reading, go and change,” Lake was true to their word. “Jesse knows to knock so you don’t have to worry about him barging in.”

Tulip changed into her pajamas and put her dirty clothes in her suitcase. “Okay, I’m done.”

“Cool,” Lake was still reading. “You wanna hop up on my bed again and talk? We don’t need to actually go to sleep right now.”

“I dunno,” Tulip pulled an onion out of the bag she put on Lake’s desk. “I’m feeling like having a snack right now. You sure you want me near you?”

Tulip took a bite out of her snack.

“As disgusted as I am, as long as I don’t have to eat it, I don’t care,” Lake replied.

Tulip sat down on Lake’s bed and made herself as comfortable as she could on such a hard mattress.

“Oh by the way, I really like your hair. It suits you.”

“Aw thanks,” Lake blushed. “So I actually have kind of a funny story. It’s about Jesse having terrible timing.”

“Of course it is,” Tulip took another bite of her onion. 

“Yeah, so I was growing out my hair as you know, it was all long and moppy and gross looking” Lake was already starting to laugh. “And literally the night before I was planning on shaving my head Jesse absent-mindedly said, ‘it’s kinda weird seeing you with hair.’ I didn’t think much of it because it was true. Me with a full head of hair _is_ weird looking.”

Lake had to quickly regain their composure. “So the next day I went into the garage and got everything all set up to give myself a haircut. Pretty much as soon as I turned on the sander Jesse just busts in apologizing profusely for the comment he made about my hair looking weird. Naturally I was kinda confused because it wasn’t a big deal to me. So I told him that I was only growing out my hair so I could have a decent looking mohawk from that start. And not a lame short one.”

Tulip giggled. “So he barged into the garage because he felt bad about a small comment about your hair?”

“Yeah, Jesse’s overly sweet sometimes,” Lake smiled fondly. “Well, after I explained what was going on to him Jesse helped me with my haircut. He was actually pretty excited for it.”

“That’s cool. And wow, Jesse’s kind of a lot, isn’t he?

“He **_is_** ,” Lake was relieved that somebody else thought so. “I love him, and I wouldn’t trade him for the world or wish he was any different. But oh my god Tulip. There’s no predicting what weird and sweet thing he will do next.”

“So is Jesse the one who usually gives you haircuts?”

“Him and my my dad, but my dad isn’t too confident in actually _cutting_ my hair so he just does the shaves. I also do it myself sometimes since my dad made a much safer sander for me to use,” Lake looked Tulip over. “So are you growing your hair out?”

“Hm? Nah,” Tulip rubbed the back of her neck. “I just haven’t been bothered to get it cut.”

“Some things never change,” Lake snickered. “That’s how your hair always ends up really long.”

“That’s true. At least I have a regular hairdesser who’s used to me not showing up in the mirror now. It wasn’t fun trying to think of how to explain why there’s a vampire in her chair.” Tulip shrugged. “That being said, her reaction was kind of funny.”

“So what did you say?” 

“That I have no idea what was going on either.”

“What? Seriously? Well, I guess a field of weirdness surrounding you is better than having to explain the mirror world, and reflections being alive.”

“But this is the weird thing, she eventually put the pieces together and asked me if I was on any trains recently.”

“Really,” Lake leaned into Tulip. “So you bumped into somebody else who was on the train?”

“Yeah that’s when things got less awkward because she knew that a lot of weird shit happens on that train. It’s really nice. We’ve shared a few stories.”

“Huh,” Lake’s face softened. 

“Small world I guess.”

“Hmmm... I guess? But to be honest, after seeing how many people get processed at once I’m not sure we can call this a ‘small world’ thing.

“Oh yeah!” Tulip’s sudden energy startled Lake. “You actually saw how the tapes are made!”

“Sort of. I just saw the tiny robots pulling magnetic tape out of a person’s head and then a much bigger robot slurping it up and putting it into a casing.”

“I actually got a look at some of the inner workings of a tape,” Tulip quickly pushed down the feelings surrounding _why_ she saw that. “One-One went into Amelia’s tape with me and he had a ton of control over it. When I got impatient while waiting for The Cat to show me what I wanted One-One _launched_ us _way high up._ And all the clips from that high look like a brain. Now that I’m looking back at it I realize just how cool that is.”

“That sounds cool,” Lake grinned. “I went into Jesse’s tape with One-One but he didn’t do anything special for me. He was too focused on figuring out why Jesse was back on the train. Well, One-One did fast-forward through Jesse’s reunion with Nate.”

“I still can’t believe Jesse got the train to pick him up a second time.”

“You’re telling me. He was the first person in history to pull that off. All because he broke his promise to get me off of the train.”

“And because he was worried about you.”

“Yeah. And because he was worried,” Lake smiled softly.

There was a knock on Lake’s door.

“Jesse what the fuck is your timing,” Lake half-shouted. “Come in, we were literally just talking about you.”

“You were? I hope it wasn’t anything bad,” Jesse walked to Lake’s bed with his arms outstretched.

Tulip accepted his hug. “Night Jesse.”

“Good night Tulip,” Jesse stretched out so he could reach Lake.

“We were saying the worst, if you knew what it was you could sue us for slander,” Lake said during the hug.

Jesse laughed. “Night Lake, I love you.”

“Love you too buddy, night,” Lake squeezed Jesse before the two separated.

“Alright, I’m gonna head to bed now,” Jesse waved. “Try to get _some_ sleep, okay?”

“I know,” Lake went back to reading. “Mom already gave me that warning.”

“Yeah but she knows you and asked me to give you a second one,” Jesse crossed with arms with an amused smile.

“Ugh,” Lake buried their nose in their book. “Yeah we’ll go to sleep at a decent time.”

“I’ll make sure of it,” Tulip said.

“I dunno about that,” Jesse said. “Lake told me about _your_ sleeping habits.”

Lake snorted as Tulip fumbled on her words.

“Okay, fine, I do tend to stay up late too,” Tulip finally found them. “But it’s not like I have my computer with me here.”

Jesse sighed. “Well, I need to go to sleep. Night again.”

“Night,” Lake and Tulip said.

Jesse left the room while shaking his head.

“He’s such a worrywart,” Tulip said. “Just how messed up _is_ your sleep schedule anyway?”

“First, you’re one to talk. Second, I’m good about waking up early, I just don’t always sleep early. And sometimes I get a little tired and according to Jesse, cranky.

“You? Cranky? Naaaahhh.”

“Oh shut up,” Lake poked Tulip with their foot, their hands were currently occupied by a book.

“Eeewwwww gross, get your foot off of me,” Tulip backed away with a giggle, Lake’s legs were short so she had the advantage. “You don’t even wear socks.”

“They’re not worth the trouble,” Lake was tempted to scooch down their bed to be able to reach Tulip. “They constantly fall down; my skin doesn’t have a whole lot of friction to it.”

“What did you do for gym class?”

“Oh people were horrified by my lack of socks. Eventually my teacher stepped in and made me wear them.”

“Being metal really _is_ a superpower.”

Tulip and Lake continued to talk casually and lost track of time. It wasn’t until the yawning started that the decided it was time to go to bed. Although Tulip had to pop out of the room to brush her teeth first.

* * *

Partly through the night Tulip found herself wide awake. She wasn’t sad or scared, or upset or anything.

Just. Melting.

“It’s the middle of the night, why is it still so hot?” She thought.

Then Tulip looked over at Lake and debated waking them up.

This was enough to get Lake to wake up and look over; it was an old holdover from their days on the run.

“What’s up?” They asked.

“Can I crack open the window?” Tulip asked.

“Go for it,” Lake replied, half-asleep.

Tulip got out of bed and opened up the window and was blasted by heat.

“Whyyy is it hotter outside than inside?” Tulip asked as she shut the window.

“Huh,” Lake squinted at the thermometer next to Peter. “Yeah I guess it is kind of warm in here. I have some comfy shorts if you want to wear those.”

“Sure.”

With a grunt Lake rolled out of bed and opened their dresser. “Would you like a tanktop too?”

“No thanks.”

“Alright,” Lake tossed some shorts at Tulip. “I’m going to see if I can borrow a fan.”

Lake opened their door and Tulip followed behind them.

“You really don’t have to, I’m sure the shorts will be fine,” Tulip whispered.

“Don’t worry about it, it’s not hot enough for Jesse to need his,” Lake stopped in-front of his door and listened. “Yep, I don’t hear it.”

They gave the door a knock and after hearing some shuffling Jesse opened his door.

“Huh?” He was mostly asleep.

“Can we borrow your fan?” Lake asked with zero hesitation.

“Sure,” Jesse shuffled back into his room and returned with a fan, he handed it to Lake.

Well, he tried but was too tired to do a decent handoff, Lake had to take it from him.

“Thanks,” Lake said. “That’s all we needed, have a good sleep.”

“Yeayoutoo,” Jesse slurred before he closed his door and Lake assumed, collapsed on his bed.

“I feel kinda bad now,” Tulip whispered.

“Ah don’t, Jesse’s just not adjusted to being up at two in the morning,” Lake whispered back.

After returning to the bedroom Lake got the fan set up for Tulip.

“And there we go,” Lake said to nobody, they flopped back on their bed, also on the verge of falling asleep. “Night again Tulip.”

“Night Lake,” Tulip returned Lake’s sentiment but judging by the sound of their breathing even that instant response was too late.

Tulip was still a little warm so she changed into Lake’s ‘comfy shorts.’

As much as she appreciated having comfortable bedding no part of Tulip wanted to sleep under the covers.

But she was also fairly awake now so Tulip decided to mess around on her phone until her eyelids started to feel heavy. She made sure to turn towards Lake so the light of her screen didn’t wake them up.

Tulip scrolled through Twitter and saw that Mikayla had just tweeted something. (Mikayla finally caved in and signed up.)

|Why are you still up?| Tulip DM’d to Mikayla.

 _[i could ask you the same thing]_ Mikayla’s reply was instant.

|im an hour behind you|

_[so]_

|early day tomorrow going to sleep soon probably|

|its sooooo hot here|

|im dying|

_[open a window]_

|its worse outside!|

|Lake got me a fan tho|

_[that’s good]_

Tulip yawned.

|but seriously. Why were you up?|

_[couldnt sleep.]_

|were you worried about me?|

Tulip meant that as a joke but Mikyala’s reply took longer than the others had.

_[Yea a little]_

|Sorry|

_[Don‘t be. You didn’t ask that train to come pick you up.]_

|Yeah. I guess.|

_[well time to sleep. Night love you!]_

Tulip smiled.

|I love you too. Night.|

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Seriously I live in a desert now and good lord does it ever get hot. Even Fall at night is disgusting.
> 
> Anyway, I'll probably go back and link to some fanart I drew of the time skip designs. Of course you don't need to picture these characters the exact same way I do.
> 
> EDIT: And here's the fanart! They're just doodles for now. <https://kujo1597.tumblr.com/post/625730168055595008/chanting-time-skip-time-skip-time-skip-oh>


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I posted some pencil drawings of the time skip designs for anybody curious.  
> <https://kujo1597.tumblr.com/post/625730168055595008/chanting-time-skip-time-skip-time-skip-oh>
> 
> And a little heads-up. In the first part of this chapter I describe Lake feeding a worm to their pet spider.

“Good morning Peter.”

Tulip woke up to the sound of Lake talking to their pet in an extremely sweet voice.

When she looked over she noticed that Lake was already dressed.

“How long have you been up?” Tulip asked while rubbing her eyes.

“What? No good morning?”

“Oh yeah. Uh, morning.”

“Good morning. And to answer your question, about an hour.”

Lake grabbed a spray bottle and opened Peter’s enclosure. They gave one of the walls a misting.

“And here’s your water,” Lake talked to Peter some more. They went back to talking to Tulip. “My mom decided that it might be good to just let you sleep. But I’m waking you up early tomorrow so you can have a decent breakfast.”

“Okay,” Tulip yawned.

“Peter’s not very active this early so after I do a little running around I’ll feed him. You wanna watch?”

“I do!” Tulip’s eyes lit up.

“I had a feeling,” Lake laughed.

They turned around in their chair to face Tulip. “So I have to leave in about forty minutes or so. Nate’s planning on hanging out with one of his friends so it’ll be just you and Jesse until we all go bowling in the afternoon.”

“Okay.”

It was waaaay too early in the morning for Tulip really process all that, she gave Lake a blank look.

“I’m sure Jesse will go over it all for you again when you fully wake up,” Lake said, amusement tinting their voice. They got up and stretched their back. “I usually help my mom out with some her chores around this time and get some fresh air. That cool with you?”

“Yep, go for it,” Tulip also stretched and put on her glasses, she finally got off of her mattress. “Oh yeah thanks for lending me your shorts.”

“Not a problem.”

The two walked out of Lake’s room and Lake pretty much immediately joined Whittney in the garden.

“Good morning Tulip!” Jesse greeted her cheerfully, way too cheerfully for being up before noon. _Somebody’s a morning person._

“Morning Jesse,” Tulip greeted him back.

“What were you thinking of for breakfast?” Jesse asked. “I actually haven’t eaten mine yet either. Lake had theirs early because they have to leave right away.”

“What do you guys have?”

Jesse hummed in thought. “Well, cereal, who doesn’t have that? Bread, peanut butter… Uuhhh… you can look around if you want.”

“I think peanut butter on toast would be good,” Tulip replied. She didn’t particularly feel like digging through a bunch of strange cupboards for food.

“That _does_ sound good.” Apparently Tulip made Jesse’s decision for him. “I’ll pop some bread in the toaster for us.”

Jesse walked over to the toaster with some bread and plates; Tulip figured that while he was doing that she’d finally send her loved ones texts telling them good morning.

“Are you one of those people who put butter on along with the peanut butter?” Jesse asked.

“Am I what?” Tulip had never heard of that before. “No… just peanut butter is fine. Ew, butter too?”

“I have a couple friends who do that,” Jesse shook his head. “I will never get it myself.”

“So what time are we leaving?”

“Let’s see… We’ll be taking the bus to the roller rink so we have to go a bit early. Let’s say in an hour or so. We don’t need to really hurry there exactly.”

“Sounds good to me. So why are you up so early?”

“Why am _I_ up?” Jesse put his hand to his chest. “I’m just here to see my little sib off. Plus I just love mornings. The nice warm sun… but not too warm. The birds chirping as they wait for my mom to feed them… And so on.”

“Yeah I thought I heard a ton of birds,” Tulip said.

She then thought, “I don’t know if I’d call some of that chirping. More like horrible squawking.”

The toaster popped and Jesse put a couple slices on a plate before passing it to Tulip along with a knife and jar of peanut butter.

“I figure I should let you put as much on as you want,” he said as he got his own toast. “Oh yeah!” Jesse remembered something important. “What do you want to drink? We have water, duh, milk…” Jesse cringed. “…Orange juice.”

“What’s wrong with orange juice?” Tulip gave Jesse a quizzical look.

“Nothing, actually. But Lake likes to have orange juice with every breakfast including stuff with peanut butter and _it’s so gross_. I don’t know how they can do it.”

“Yeah… I’m okay with just water.”

“Water it is!” Jesse felt relieved that Lake was apparently the only one who liked that; he fetched water both for himself and Tulip.

She finished spreading peanut butter on her toast and took a bite. “Thanks.”

“No prob,” Jesse gave Tulip a smile and put peanut butter on his own toast. Then he took a bite. “So how’d you sleep?”

“Really good,” Tulip replied. “I was a little surprised you guys let me sleep in.”

“Not much point in waking you up,” Jesse said with a shrug.

“That’s true. Lake told me to get up early tomorrow to have a nice breakfast.”

“Yeah you’re going to need something filling. We’re taking you on a hike tomorrow.”

“A hike?”

“Yeah, a hike,” Lake’s voice joined the conversation. “The trail we go on will depend on how disgustingly hot it is. We don’t want you getting sick.”

“Me and Lake have four trails picked out,” Jesse said. “Each varying in difficulty, and amount of shade.”

Lake crossed their arms. “We put a lot of thought into this.”

“Yep,” Jesse nodded. “Lake, you want the rest of this piece?”

“Yeah sure,” Lake took the last couple bites of Jesse’s toast. “So Tulip, after you’re done your breakfast I’ll be feeding Peter.”

“Cool, I can’t wait to see!” Tulip only had a bite or two left of her toast. She decided to quickly finish it off.

“You’re watching Peter eat right after you do?” Jesse asked with a slight shudder.

“Spiders are gonna spider,” Tulip said plainly. “And I like spiders.”

“Man,” Jesse sighed.

“So,” Tulip stood up brimming with excitement, “I’m done my breakfast.”

“Wow,” Lake laughed. “I knew you liked spiders but I didn’t think _that_ much.”

Lake walked over to beside the fridge and picked up a tiny plastic container with a couple mealworms in it.

“I’ve never gotten to see one eat up close before,” Tulip said as she joined Lake.

“It’s really cool how Peter pounces on his food.”

“Does he know when you feed him?”

Their conversation continued as they walked to Lake’s room.

“I’m not sure,” Lake replied. “He’s always happy to see me. But Peter does seem to know what this little container means.”

“Where do you get your food?”

“Well,” Lake walked into their bedroom, “it’s kinda expensive at the pet store so I decided to raise my own mealworms.”

“Huh, neat. I would’ve thought you’d like them too much to do that.”

“Nah, I like to think of it as being like cattle farming. They’re raised to be food so it’s not nearly as sad. Plus, those beetles don’t live very long anyway.”

“True, true.”

Lake sat down in their chair and picked up some tweezers, once Peter saw what they were holding he perked up.

“The downside of raising mealworms when you have just one little spider is that you end up with too many… Hang on,” Lake gently opened Peter’s enclosure. “Hey Peter, you already know it’s feeding time, don’t you?”

Of course Peter didn’t say anything, he’s a spider. But he did start crawling down his branch a little bit in anticipation. Lake grabbed one of the mealworms with their tweezers and placed it at the bottom of the enclosure and told Tulip to watch. Peter made his way down the branch relatively quickly and took a second to observe his food wriggling around. And then he pounced on it and bit in.

“Somebody’s really hungry today,” Lake cooed.

“That’s really cool,” Tulip said with a sparkle in her eye. “He just went for it.”

“I know, Peter’s such an enthusiastic little guy.”

Lake happily watched their pet as he drank the inside of the worm; they had so much love in their eyes.

“So what were you saying about having too many mealworms?” Tulip asked, realizing that Lake was fully distracted by Peter.

“Oh yeah!” Lake appreciated getting their memory jogged. “Uh, yeah. So I had waaay more worms than I expected and I’m like, fuck. So I asked my dad to see if there was anybody in the neighbourhood who could use some mealworms. And you know, buy them for cheap. Sure enough, there are a couple exotic pet owners with small reptiles that could use some worms. Oh my god.” Lake fidgeted in their seat with a squeal. “One of them even brings his little lizard sometimes! He lives just a couple houses down from me. Oh what a cutie! I even get to hold him!”

“Sounds like a cool perk of raising up those worms,” Tulip found herself amused by Lake’s excitement over the lizard.

Lake grinned. “It is! And of course the money doesn’t hurt. Raising mealworms does take some materials that need replenishing. Also! The one who doesn’t bring her pet does show me pictures!”

“So where do you raise your worms?”

“Oh, in the garage. My mom wasn’t _super thrilled_ about the idea of having a bunch of worms in the house. She also wasn’t too thrilled about me having worms in the fridge. But I label them so nobody’s accidentally eaten any. Well, not yet anyway.”

“I’m a little surprised she let you get a spider then.”

“I promised to take care of Peter and my mom is very chill. She was just expecting me to buy worms and not raise them.” Lake gave Tulip a little shrug. “But she thinks the whole process is cool and it’s been a nice learning tool for me and Nate.”

“Your mom used to be a teacher, right?”

Lake got up from their desk and started gathering their things while continuing the conversation. “Yep. She used to be an art teacher mainly. But she does know a bunch of stuff and taught me while I wasn’t in school.”

“That’s awesome.”

“It really is,” Lake walked out of their door with Tulip close behind them.

“You told me a lot about her and it sounds like your mom has like, _a billion_ skills.”

“She does and I love that about her. Doesn’t your dad do a bunch of stuff too?”

“Mostly mechanical things. But yeah, he taught me a lot of what I know, and how to learn from taking everything apart.”

“I forgot, does your dad know computers? Or was that all you?”

“That’s all me,” Tulip radiated pride. “I did so much research on everything. I did use some of what my dad taught me like how to remember where everything goes when you take things apart. But he never covered computers specifically. And I borrowed a ton of books from the library.”

“Which is why a lot of them are from when monitors were giant.”

Tulip giggled. “Yeah, but they got the job done. Oh! I’m so excited to finally build my own PC! I’ve been saving up my allowance for forever!”

“Nice!” Lake gave Tulip a shining smile. “I know you’ve always wanted to do that! Did you remember to buy an anti-static bracelet?”

“Lake, who are you talking to? _Of course I did_.”

“Well forgive me then,” Lake said sarcastically.

“Good morning Tulip,” neither her, nor Lake even noticed Whittney walk up with Jesse by her side.

“Morning Whittney,” Tulip returned her greeting.

“I know you and Lake are having fun, but we have to get going,” Whittney said. “But first. Lake, do you have your phone?”

“Yep,” Lake showed their phone to Whittney.

“Glasses?” Whittney continued to list items and Lake took them all out of their messenger bag to show them to her. “Good.”

“Oh yeah, I didn’t put Peter’s extra worms away,” Lake said, they turned around to start going up the stairs.

“I can do that,” Jesse caught Lake before they ran off. He had a feeling they were trying to delay leaving.

“Aw,” Lake sighed. “Well, I'm off. See you guys later.”

“Bye Lake,” Jesse waved at them with a smile.

"See ya,” Tulip also gave Lake a wave.

“Bye,” Lake then left through the door with Whittney.

“I'm surprised you didn't give Lake a huge hug or anything,” Tulip said immediately after Lake left.

“I used to,” Jesse said. “Like, I did the first few sessions and I noticed that it genuinely annoyed Lake. They usually just playfully roll their eyes at me or shake their head or something. But not when I made a big deal out of them going to therapy.”

“Huh. Yeah that makes sense.”

“So I stopped making it _a thing._ I'm still super proud of Lake for getting help and getting better. But I also know them well enough to know when to dial things back a bit.”

“You're a good friend-er, brother.”

“Meh,” Jesse shrugged. “Me and Lake are both best friends and siblings. I should probably put the worms away. Poor Peter’s probably trying to get to them.”

Jesse started his walk to Lake’s room with Tulip behind him.

“So you’re okay with bugs in general, just not spiders?” she asked.

“Pretty much,” Jesse replied. “It’s all the eyes a spider has that weirds me out. Peter isn’t _too bad_ but that’s probably because he has two big eyes and it’s harder to notice all the other ones.”

Jesse took a look in Peter’s enclosure, and saw that the outside of the mealworm was sitting there with no spider to be found. He decided to send Lake a text asking if he should clean up the shell, it didn’t take long for Lake to reply.

He breathed a sigh of relief at Lake telling him that he can just leave the shell. “I _really_ didn’t want to clean it up.”

So Jesse simply picked up the small container Lake left on their desk with the leftover worms.

“I’m actually going to quickly hop in the shower,” Tulip said.

“Uh, sure. My mom left some towels on the counter for you to use.”

“Cool, see you in a bit.”

“Yeah, see ya.”

Jesse looked in Peter’s enclosure some more and managed to spot him. He wanted to try to work on his fear of such a tiny spider. He gave Peter a little wave.

And then felt a shiver run down his spine when Peter made eye-contact.

“Bye Peter. Glad you… liked your meal.”

Before going back downstairs Jesse got to his next task, waking Nate up. Which was just a simple knock on his door.

* * *

After a stifling and hot bus ride Tulip and Jesse arrived at the roller rink. The two rented their roller-skates and started to do them up. Loud music boomed through the entire building.

“Have you ever done this before?” Jesse asked.

“Nope,” Tulip replied.

“Yeah me neither.”

Tulip raised an eyebrow. “Have you ever ice-skated?”

“Nah.”

“You live right next to a lake. How have you not skated before?”

“It doesn’t get cold enough to skate on safely. The last thing I would want is to fall through the ice. How terrifying.”

“Ah, true. You guys don’t even get snow, do you?”

“Sometimes we do,” Jesse tested out the skate he had on. “But never a ton. Nate always loves it when it snows. And Lake got to experience it for their first time last year.”

Jesse laughed at the memory. “They stayed up late watching it fall and pretty much demanded that we make a snowman even though it wasn’t melty enough to stick together. So I ended up freezing my hands trying to make snowballs to make a tiny snowman at least.”

Tulip laughed. “I should have expected that. So did you guys go tobogganing?”

“Why would I have a sled?”

“Oh… right. Good point.”

“Well,” Jesse got his second skate on and felt extremely shaky. “I think I’m ready to go in.”

Tulip stood up and fared better than him. “You sure?”

“Yeah, I’m a fast learner,” Jesse smiled. “Just give me a minute and I’ll be doing laps like nobody’s business.”

Jesse unsteadily made his way to the rink with Tulip staying by his side. She debated staying close to him so she could attempt to catch him. But then realized that with the size difference between them, yeah they’d both get hurt.

“Okay!” Jesse pumped himself up.

He took one skate and then another and then-

-slipped backwards and fell.

Tulip quickly skated up to him and crouched down.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

“Yep,” Jesse gave Tulip a thumbs-up. “I’m good.”

He sat up and rubbed his head. “Well, this might be harder than I expected.”

“It did take me a while to learn how to ice-skate.”

“So how’d you learn?”

“My mom held my hands so I didn’t fall. And eventually once I felt steady enough she gave me a chair to hold while I skated around. And after that she just stayed by my side. Eventually I was allowed on the ice by myself.”

“I see… So, uh… do you think you could teach me like that? Obviously we can’t do the chair thing.”

“Sure,” Tulip shrugged. “Just stand up first. I feel like if I tried to help you up I’d end up on the floor too.”

Jesse steadied himself with the side of the rink as he stood up. And after Tulip was confident that he wasn’t going to immediately fall she stood facing him and offered both her hands. Jesse took them into his own.

Then the two started to skate, Tulip counted each movement to keep herself and Jesse in-sync.

“You’re doing pretty well,” Tulip decided to offer Jesse some encouragement. “You really are a fast learner.”

“It’s kinda weird holding such warm hands,” Jesse said absentmindedly.

“Weird?”

“Haven’t you noticed? Lake naturally runs pretty cold.”

“I can’t say I ever held hands with them. But I guess they don't feel very warm when I hug them. I never really thought about it.”

“Heh, that's true,” Jesse blushed. “Lake pretty much only holds hands with me. Well, sometimes Nate still gets a bit clingy with them.”

“Anyway, I still can’t believe you invited me to go here even though you've never done this before.”

“You can’t have a first try if you never try. I’m just glad you can ice-skate, it seems like some of it’s coming in handy for you.”

“It is, but even I’m a little shaky here. I just realized something, if you fall you’re taking me down with you.”

“Butts are made to fall on,” Jesse sounded pretty confident about that.

“Pretty sure they're not.”

“So what are butts for then?”

“Um, hm. I'm not actually sure.”

“Well then how do you know that they _aren’t_ for falling on?”

In that moment Tulip understood why Lake liked to flick Jesse on the head. “I just do, okay?”

Jesse smirked. “Sounds like _I_ won this one.”

Tulip giggled.

The two skated the way they were for another ten minutes or so, they kept talking about random and silly things. Then it was time to try letting Jesse go on his own.

“Ready?” Tulip confirmed it with him.

“Yep, ready.”

With some hesitation Jesse let go of Tulip’s right hand and she turned around to face forward while still holding a single hand with Jesse. He was closer to the edge of the rink so if he did feel like he was going to fall he could grab onto it and steady himself. After one more confirmation Tulip let go entirely.

The two skated side-by-side for a bit and Tulip felt confident in Jesse’s newfound skills.

“Great job!” she gave him more encouragement. Jesse struck Tulip as the type who learned best with a ton of positive reinforcement.

“Thanks!” Jesse grinned. “I had a great teacher.”

Tulip blushed. “Aw, it was nothing. You’re a good student. You _do_ pick things up quick.”

“Well… I do when it’s athletic,” Jesse glanced away with a blush. “Brain-stuff less so. Anyway, you’re really good! I would have never guessed you never did this before!”

“Thank you! Even though I’m on four wheels I’m finding my ice-skating skills have really helped me out.” Tulip thought for a moment. “I wonder if Lake can ice-skate. They probably learned when I did because the ice is reflective. I’m wondering about them you know…”

“Being too heavy?”

“Yeah. Because I think it’d be fun for everybody to get together some time and try ice-skating.”

“That _would_ be fun. We might have to try and make that possible. I mean, a skating rink can’t be _that_ deep, right?”

“Ooohhhh!” Tulip didn’t even think that Jesse would misunderstand what she meant when she thought Lake might be too heavy. “No I meant the same reason Lake’s too heavy to do this. It’s just too much pressure on the thin blade. I doubt they would fall through the ice. It can hold a lot of people.”

“But Lake weighs over twice as much as me. So me, them, you, and Mikayla kinda close together might be too much.”

“Cripes. You might be right…”

“Which is why a rink would be good. If we did literally break the ice then it’d probably only be up to your waist at the highest.”

Tulip started to laugh loudly but stopped herself which made an odd noise. “No! Jesse! It’d only be eight inches deep at the most! _Maybe_ ten. You don’t need that much water.”

“So what you’re saying is, the only risk is embarrassment if this did end up being a terrible idea.”

“Gosh, are we seriously considering it?”

“We’d have to talk to Lake about it and bring up the breaking the ice part.”

“Wow. I hope we can do it. I’m really starting to like the thought of it.”

“It would be _pretty cool_.”

The second Tulip saw Jesse’s face she rolled her eyes and decided to outpace him. What an awful pun.

“Wh-hey!” Jesse skated as fast as he could to catch up.

Tulip was honestly impressed by the fact that Jesse didn’t fall.

Their voices started to feel hoarse from trying to talk over the music so most of the rest of their time in the rink was spend skating side-by-side and simply enjoying the music and activity together.

Feeling tired and kind of sweaty Tulip and Jesse stepped out of the rink and talked as they took off the roller-skates. It was quieter where they were standing.

“So what’s next?” Tulip asked.

“Lunch,” Jesse replied. “So we can get a bite to eat here, they have a concessions stand. I’m not sure how filling of a lunch that would be. We can also pop into a gas station near here and have a couple hot dogs. We’re running kinda late so it has to be something fast.”

“I’m not sure how I feel about a gas station hot dog…” Tulip decided to be honest about that fact. “We can pick up some food here.”

Jesse laughed. “I know a lot of people who won’t eat gas station food with me. You know… Lake likes gas station hot dogs.”

“Lake literally has an iron stomach.”

“It’s more tin foil than iron.”

“It is?”

“Oh it’s actually really cool! When Lake first got off the train we took them to a doctor so there’s some record that they y’know, _exist_. And the doctor listened to Lake’s lungs and said they sound like foil. It would make sense that the rest of their squishy bits would be foil too.”

“Please don’t call them squishy bits again.”

“But they _are_ squishy. They need to be to work, right? You know, your intestines squish your food down, your lungs squish to push out the carbon dioxide that’s there after your body takes all the oxygen, and your heart squishes all the blood out of it and makes it goes in your veins.”

“You’re right,” Tulip sighed. “You’re completely right but I don’t like it being put that way.”

“How do you feel about me and Lake calling humans fleshy, and flesh-people, and sometimes saying meat-bodies?”

“Why do you two have to put things in the most cursed way possible?”

“Because Lake isn’t a flesh-person like me and you.”

“I mean, yeah I guess. But _meat-body_?”

Jesse laughed. “Personally I think ‘skin-suit’ sounds worse than anything I can come up with.”

“Skin-suit?”

“Lake told me that if you really want to tick off a flec you call them a skin-suit. It’s the mirror world version of calling a cop a pig.”

Tulip shook her head. “Why do they know so many ways to antagonize people?”

“The world may never know…” Jesse perked up. “Anyway! Let’s grab a bite to eat and then walk to the bowling alley.”

The two did just that. They got a couple burgers from the concession stands and ate them while standing near a window. They talked about a variety of fandom things, mostly shows they both liked. And then it was a quick walk to the bowling alley. Jesse couldn’t stop talking about his friends along the way.

* * *

“Guys!” Jesse waved at the four friends who were already there with a huge smile. “Hope you weren’t waiting for too long!”

“Nah, no longer than usual,” the tallest one in the group said.

“Cool, cool,” Jesse couldn’t stop smiling.

The energy in the room was infectious, even Tulip was getting excited for this meeting.

“Hi, I’m Tulip,” she introduced herself with a wave.

One of the girls’ eyes sparkled, she was wearing glasses and had somewhat short hair, she walked up to Tulip with a smile. “I’m Alice, but everybody calls me Ally, basically. It’s so nice to meet you!”

“Nice to meet you too,” Tulip said.

A tall-ish boy with curly hair took a few steps closer to Tulip and looked at her face. “Wow you really do look like Lake.”

“Wha-rude,” the first boy to talk immediately scolded his friend. “You didn’t even introduce yourself.” He sighed. “I’m James, that’s Charlie.”

James nudged Charlie with his elbow. “Right, sorry,” Charlie apologized. “I was just surprised. I mean, it’s obvious you would but it’s so crazy to see. You know?”

“Nah I get it,” Tulip took it in stride. “It’s not really a thing that ever happens.”

And finally, the last friend came up to Tulip, she gave her a small look and spoke with a French accent. “I’m Camille. I’m happy to meet you! Lake was so excited for you to visit.”

Ally giggled. “They really were. That’s pretty much all Lake could talk about.”

“Huh, I wouldn’t have thought,” Tulip said, her heart felt warm. “Lake’s just kinda been Lake the whole time I was here.”

“That doesn’t surprise me,” Camille said. “They’re kind of shy about their feelings sometimes.”

“Sometimes?” immediately popped out of Charlie’s mouth.

“Okay, lots of times,” Camille shrugged.

“That’s sounds about right,” Tulip said.

As the group talked some more and got better acquainted it hit Tulip that Jesse really was kind of short for his friend group. She joked about him not being tall but wow.

Of course this meant that Tulip felt positively tiny. But that wasn’t exactly new.

Jesse’s face lit up and he waved.

“Lake! Hey!”

They looked towards Jesse and smiled and waved back. But before joining the group Lake gave Whittney a hug and received a tight squeeze from her and a quick kiss on the head. Whittney quietly said to Lake, “I’m so proud of you.”

“Thanks,” Lake smiled softly.

“Guys!” Lake cheerfully called out to them while briskly and jauntily walking up. “Sorry I’m late. It took longer to get lunch than I expected.”

“You have your traditional Taco Bell?” Jesse asked.

“Of course I did, therapy requires some recharging and Taco Bell is just what the doctor ordered,” Lake crossed their arms.

“Did it go well?” Ally asked.

“About as well as it normally does,” Lake replied with a shrug. “Which isn’t a bad thing of course. And we did figure a thing out today which is good.”

Ally warmly smiled at Lake. “That’s great!”

Lake blushed. “Yeah, it kinda is.” They shook their head. “So, you guys wanna get ready to do some bowling?”

“Yes!” Jesse cheered.

The group all lined up to get their bowling shoes, it quickly became clear to Tulip that they’re regulars; the person giving out the shoes _definitely_ recognized Lake. After all the shoes were retrieved everybody settled down on the seats of a lane and put them on.

“Are we doing joke names this time?” Jesse asked.

“No,” everybody replied in unison.

Jesse pouted. “On my birthday we’re doing joke names. They’re fun.”

He wrote down his name, and got out of the way for everybody else to put theirs down.

Before picking up the ball Jesse stretched out in a silly way. He was obviously trying to boost Lake’s mood. Jesse rolled his first ball down the lane and knocked down a few pins, and with his second ball he ended up with just one remaining.

“I’m going to need to warm up,” he said before sitting down. And once his butt hit the seat he remembered an earlier conversation. “Hey Lake, what are butts for?”

“Falling on,” Lake’s answer was immediate.

Jesse laughed. “Yeah you get it! Tulip said that they’re not for that. How silly of her.”

“What else could they be for? They’re so cushioned.”

“Exactly!”

Next up to bowl was Camille she didn’t put on a fun show like Jesse did, she was completely focused. She didn’t exactly get a strike, but she did pretty well.

“Nice!” Lake gave Camille a high-ten with a grin. “You’re getting better!”

“Thank you!” Camille returned Lake’s grin.

“Here I go,” James said as he grabbed his bowling ball.

He took a breath to steady his nerves, even though it was just a fun round of bowling with his friends he still wanted to do well. Maybe even get third place for once!

After steadying his nerves James rolled his bowling ball down the lane and managed to pick up a spare. Nobody thought he would, not even him. The pins after his first roll were in a messy position.

“Great job!” Jesse gave him a thumbs-up. “You’re really improving.”

“It’s too early to say,” James glanced away. “I usually start off strong.”

“Oh yeah,” Lake’s memory got sparked. “James, you’ll be happy to hear this. I can read fast enough to keep up with subtitles now.”

James’ face lit up the second Lake finished their sentence. “Really! First, congratulations.”

Lake got a little clap from their friends and wound up blushing.

“And second,” James reached into his pocket and passed a piece of paper to Lake, “I can finally give you this list of animé you should watch.”

“How long have you been carrying this around?” Lake asked, they squinted at the faded writing.

“A little while, I wrote it when we first started hanging out.”

“I should have guessed.” Lake read the paper some more. “I think I recognize a couple of these names…”

Then it hit them, for once, they can just go straight to the source!

“Hey Tulip,” Lake passed the list to her. “Have you watched any of these?”

“Hm,” Tulip also had a hard time reading the list. “Yeah, I think I watched a little of a couple of these.”

“Really!” James looked over at Tulip with so much excitement in his eyes.

“Well, hold on, it’s been years; me and Lake were still together,” Tulip had a moment of thought. “…I’m not sure if I like that wording. It makes us sound like exes.”

Lake snickered. “It _does_ , but it’s also a simple way of putting it. I generally say ‘when I was still attached to Tulip’ but that kinda makes it sound like I hate you now.”

Tulip sighed and rubbed her temples. “This is so complicated.”

“When I wasn’t ready to tell Jesse about myself I sorta humanized it by saying that my parents thought you were perfect and wanted me to be exactly like you,” Lake chuckled at the memory.

“Huh,” Tulip wasn’t entirely sure what to think about Lake’s ‘humanized’ version of things.

“And because I was the way I was I just honed in on the part where Lake said that they needed to stop being friends with you to be themself,” Jesse was also enjoying the little trip down memory lane.

“ _This_ is the first time I’ve heard that story,” James said. “Jesse, did you just take it at face value? And not question the fact that Lake is metal?”

“To be fair,” Camille spoke up. “I didn’t question the fact that Lake is metal either.”

“Yeah, who are we to ask?” Jesse pointed out. “Things happen. Babies can be born with metal skin. Why not?”

Lake shook their head with the tiniest and fondest smile.

“Okay fine,” James sighed. “I guess it _could_ happen.”

“You know… going back a bit, we really should sit down some time and figure out how to word everything,” Tulip said to Lake.

“I guess…” Lake didn’t particularly see a need to. “I mean, I’m not against the possibility of people thinking we’re exes. It’s not like we’d ever see them again anyway.”

“I think this might just be a town and city thing, I guess yeah, in a city you probably won’t run into the same person twice or even be remembered, but it’s kinda different where I live,” Tulip said.

“True,” Lake shrugged. “Some people are starting to recognize me now. But I do stand out. Like uh, the Taco Bell I always go to after a therapy session. They know me there. I’ve been going there monthly for almost two years now.”

“You do really stand out,” Charlie said, he was just sitting down. Apparently he went up to the lane during the conversation and everybody participating was too engrossed to notice. “There aren’t too many former reflections walking around.”

“There aren’t _any_ other than me,” Lake said. “Anyway, I guess Ally’s up now.”

Ally smiled. “Yep!”

“Hey good luck out there!” Lake cheered her on with a smile.

“Thanks!”

With a calming breath Ally tool her turn. She unfortunately got a gutter ball, and she shook out her hands to try to relax and just have fun. Her next shot knocked over only a few pins but that was enough to put a smile back on her face.

On her way back to her seat Ally gave Lake five and words of encouragement.

Now, see, the problem with Lake was, they constantly got splits. Two years of freedom later and Lake still had somewhat poor control over their strength. And today was no exception.

“Ugh,” Lake groaned as they walked back. And they gave Tulip a pat on the shoulder. “Your turn.”

“Wish me luck,” Tulip’s words were answered with a good-natured hand wave from Lake.

Tulip picked up her ball and looked down the lane. She wasn’t expecting to be playing with such an experienced group. But seeing that a couple of them were more her level helped ease her mind. Everybody was just there to have fun.

But of course this was Tulip, she had a competitive streak and wanted to do well.

She rolled her first ball down the lane and watched with anticipation as it started to inch closer and closer to the gutter. But it never did go in. And Tulip was in decent shape to pick up a spare. The problem was the execution. Tulip _just barely_ missed out on the spare.

Everybody continued to take their turns and warmed up while shooting the shit, some embarrassing stories were shared and Lake at some point said, “Oh fuck you,” and then shared a story about Charlie. As the game went on the group’s scores generally steadily increased. Lake’s didn’t for a while but they started to get better control over their power and weren’t getting as many splits. And in fact got a couple strikes.

“Wait hang on a minute,” Lake’s turn came back up. “Am I going for a third in a row?”

“You are!” Jesse cheered. “Oh, but no pressure.”

“Thanks pal, ‘ppreciate you,” Lake was actually starting to feel the pressure, they hoped ribbing Jesse a little would help.

It didn’t.

So Lake took a deep breath and tried to not think about their score.

After their hands steadied and Lake felt like they could control their own strength they took their shot and managed to get their third strike.

“Holy shit!” Lake shouted in excitement. “I did it!”

Everybody congratulated Lake in a big messy huddle of back and shoulder pats. All the good vibes got a hearty chuckle out of Lake.

It was then Tulip’s turn and she was feeling the positive energy radiating from the friend group. So her nerves from earlier were entirely gone.

Which was good because Tulip was going for her second strike in a row. And somehow some way she managed to get it.

“Nice!” Lake cheered. “Maybe next turn you’ll have a turkey too!”

“Yeah maybe!” Tulip gave Lake a smile.

Because Jesse started the group off he was next and as he usually did he managed to pick up a spare. He had a couple strikes too but his game was about consistency.

The rest of the group all went and had looped back around to Tulip. Lake gave her a good encouraging clap on the back while she was walking up.

Still feeling the warmth of the group Tulip found herself not worried at all about whether or not she’ll make her shot. And that confidence got her ball to roll down the lane straight and true.

“Yes! I did it!” Tulip cheered and got an extremely enthusiastic congratulations from everybody, especially Lake.

“Awesome job!” They said.

There wasn’t much left of the game, everybody wrapped up and their scores were tallied.

“Okay well let’s see here,” Jesse read them out. “First place is me, surprisingly. But in a close second is Tulip, once she warmed up she really got going. And third place is Lake.” Jesse decided to not go over all the other places, he honestly felt bad for everybody below the top three.

And it’s not like they couldn’t see their own scores.

With another round of congratulations everybody packed up their stuff and got ready to drop their shoes off.

“Don’t forget these,” the man who was in charge of the alley put a couple pins shaped like turkeys on the counter. “You both managed to get turkeys so you get pins. Congrats.”

Lake and Tulip picked up their pins with a smile.

“Smile!” Jesse pulled out his phone. “Let me take a picture of you two!”

The two posed for a couple pictures with their pins and Jesse took them. He showed them to Tulip and Lake so they could pick out which ones they want sent to them.

Once Tulip received the photos she sent her favourite one to her loved ones.

“We should also all take a picture together as a group,” Jesse suggested, then he realized that it would be hard to fit everybody in a single picture. This was one of those times he wished he had a selfie stick.

“Hey uh,” Jesse decided to just go up to the counter and ask. “Can you take a picture of us please? One of my friends is visiting all the way from Minnesota and I want a picture to remember this by.”

“Sure,” the owner agreed and was handed Jesse’s phone. “Okay you guys, I need you to squeeze in a little. There’s a lot of you. But be careful not to hide the smaller ones yeah.”

Lake had to fight the urge to quickly flip him off.

After some fiddling around a couple pictures were taken and Jesse was given his phone back. He thanked the owner and looked through the photos.

“These turned out pretty nice,” he said. “I’ll forward them to you all.”

It didn’t take long for Tulip to send the group photo to her parents and Mikayla attached to a message saying:

|went bowling had a blast w/ these guys|

“I need to go to the bathroom,” Tulip said. “Be back in a sec.”

As soon as Tulip left Ally spoke to Lake with a smile. “You’re really happy to be hanging out with Tulip.”

“You’re shining,” Camille said.

“Literally and figuratively,” James decided to tease Lake a little. “Did you give yourself a polish?”

A blush spread across Lake’s cheeks. “Oh shut up. And yeah, I polished myself. What of it? I never see Tulip so I wanted to look my best.”

James chuckled.

“Lake’s… not the only one,” Jesse’s face was feeling a bit warm too. “I kinda asked them to touch up my hair a little after I was done with theirs.”

“I thought you were looking a little less shaggy,” Charlie said with a smirk and scruffed up Jesse’s hair.

“Hey!” Jesse unruffled his hair.

“I think I did a pretty good job maintaining that Disney prince vibe he somehow ended up with,” Lake said.

“You’re not letting that one go,” Jesse said.

“Nope. And like I said,” Lake shrugged, “it suits you. It’s cute.”

As the group was talking a woman walked out of the washroom, she looked white as a sheet.

“I’m guessing somebody saw Tulip not in a mirror,” Lake pointed to her with their thumb.

And following closely after the woman was Tulip, she was completely unfazed by everything and simply rejoined everybody.

“Do you get that a lot?” Camille asked.

“Get what?” Then it hit Tulip. “Ooohhh, that. Uh, yeah. I’m pretty used to it now. People see me but no reflection, they look haunted, and then walk away.”

“Do you ever say anything about it?” Jesse asked.

“Oh! Like say the mirror is out of order,” Lake said.

“Or that you need to put another dollar in it,” Ally added.

Lake snickered. “Yeah yeah, like, ‘oh dammit, I need to stick another quarter behind the glass.’”

Tulip started to giggle. “I can’t say that I have.”

“Of course I am more of an asshole than you,” Lake shrugged.

“You’re definitely more of a smartass, that’s for sure,” Tulip smirked.

The two shared a chuckle.

Then the group walked to the bus stop so everybody can catch their rides.

“I can’t believe we never talked about this,” Charlie looked down at Tulip. “Your programming. I heard you make games and that’s pretty awesome.”

“Thanks!” Tulip’s face lit right up. “I’ve improved so much in this past year too! Like, my games take longer to make now because I’ve been adding so much more to them. My first few games were really simple and I’m still proud of them since I’m pretty much self-taught. I just had old books and had to scour the web to find resources. But then I got to go to game design camp but that’s just a weekend trip. It _really_ helped me out though. And my school has a programming class and I’ve been taking it too. But I kinda already knew a lot of the stuff so I’m not sure how much I’m getting out of it exactly. But I’ve been enjoying it. And that counts for something, right.”

“Yeah, absolutely. I’m in a programming class too. But at home I’ve been playing around with Gamemaker for my stuff. I haven’t fully finished anything yet.”

“Cool! I probably should try it at some point.”

“Wait, have you been doing it old school?”

“Pretty much, yeah.”

“Geeze, my hat's off to you. That’s really impressive. Lake showed me the game you and them made together. It was really cool.”

“I played that too!” Camille said, and Ally raised her hand to say that she also did. “It was great.”

“Thanks!” Tulip felt even prouder than she already did. “You know Lake, if you’re feeling up to it, I’d like to do another collab with you.”

“Oh hell yeah,” Lake said.

“At the risk of sounding insensitive, I’m glad therapy didn’t take away from Lake’s ability to draw some freaky shit,” Charlie said.

“Nah, you’re good," Lake crossed their arms. “I’m glad too. It’s sorta my aesthetic; always has been. That’s why I play Archfiends.”

“Oh yeah, while we’re on the subject of my games. I’ve been playing around with putting one of mine on Steam. I got an offer from a small publisher.”

“Oh damn Tulip!" Lake whooped. “That’s awesome! You did read the contract thoroughly though, right? I don’t want you getting conned. But if you did, I’d kick a few asses for ya.”

Tulip smiled. “Don’t worry, I looked into the company to see if it’s legit.”

“That’s so amazing,” Jesse grinned. “You definitely need to link me to the Steam page when it goes up.”

Everybody agreed with Jesse.

“Oh yeah,” Ally spoke up. “Lake, how far are you in your book?”

“Hm,” Lake recalled what they read earlier. “I think I started chapter eight now.”

“You’re so close!” Camille shouted in excitement. “I can’t wait for you to get this one part!”

“Careful,” Ally gave her a little warning. “We can’t even hint at it without ruining the surprise.”

“Okay, now I’m excited,” Lake said. “I’m already really enjoying the book. And you two anticipating a certain part’s getting me pretty hyped up to reach it.”

“Is that what you read all day yesterday?” Tulip asked.

“Yep!” Lake replied. “I haven’t been able to put it down since I started. I even brought it with me today.”

And to prove it Lake pulled the book out of their messenger bag.

“I’m glad you like it so much,” Ally said.

The loud sound of the bus’ engine caught everybody’s attention. Ally, James, and Charlie all got on after giving their friends a wave. They told Tulip that it was great to meet her.

The remaining people talked until Camille’s parents came to pick her up just a little ways down the block; away from the bus stop.

“It was great seeing you!” She waved at everybody. “I had fun meeting you Tulip!”

“Yeah, same here!” Tulip waved back.

“See you later!” Lake gave Camille a send-off too.

“Bye! Hang out soon, okay?” And Jesse followed.

Camille got in the car which just left a group of three waiting for Whittney to come pick them up.

“You did text mom, right?” Lake asked.

“Yeah, of course,” Jesse replied. “She’s probably held up in traffic.”

Lake made a noise, nobody was entirely sure what it meant. Probably annoyance.

“Have you decided what you’d like to pick up for souvenirs?” Lake asked Tulip.

“Nope, not yet,” Tulip replied. “Is there anything your city’s really known for?”

Jesse gave it a think. “Not really… So I guess you’d have to pick some generic Arizona things.”

“I’m sure that’ll be easy enough to find, and if not then you can pick up something with a cactus on it,” Lake said.

“Is my home state really just known for cactuses and the desert?” Jesse asked.

“Pretty much,” Tulip and Lake replied.

“And the Grand Canyon,” Tulip added.

“Yeah that, my family even went there once,” Lake said. “It was so cool.”

“It was,” Jesse said. “I’m glad we went. But at the same time…”

He sighed. Then perked back up. “Well! You can also pick up some prickly pear candies. They’re pretty good, I doubt you can find those in Minnesota.”

“Prickly pears come from cacti sooo…” Lake had to point that out.

“Yeah I know, I know,” Jesse gave Lake a _little_ sass back. “But I can’t deny that it tastes good.”

“Right, so I’ll buy some candy, and I’m sure I can find some cool hoodies or something,” Tulip made her preliminary decision.

Whittney arrived and Jesse opened the door.

“And I’m sure that they’ll like anything you pick out,” he said.

The three all filed into the car and Whittney left.

* * *

Dinner was a nice simple one, pizza. Everybody likes pizza, and Tulip got to pick one of her own. Maybe it was because Tulip’s on vacation; but that pizza was absolutely amazing.

After dinner, and the parents made themselves scarce by going into their room to watch TV. Just so the kids can have all the fun they want.

“You know what we haven’t done yet,” Lake said.

“What?” Jesse asked.

“We never did get around to watching Pryde of the X-Men,” Lake replied.

“No!” Tulip had a goofy smile. “You guys have that?”

“Pfft, no,” Lake waved their hand. “It’s on YouTube. It’s old as hell and wound up on there.”

“We’re going to have to get Nate,” Jesse said.

“Oh absolutely!” Lake stood up immediately. “Should I tell him it’s extremely cheesy or let that be a surprise?”

“Let it be a surprise,” Jesse replied.

“So are we watching it?” Lake asked Tulip.

“Heck yeah!” Tulip replied. “It’s been _years_ since I did.”

“I’ll get it all set up,” Jesse said.

“I’ll go fetch Nate,” Lake said then walked up to his room.

It didn’t take long for him to come down with Lake and a grin.

“I can’t wait to see this!” He radiated pure excitement.

“It’s a gem,” Tulip said. “I have no idea how many times I watched that old tape.”

Nate sat down in the chair and Lake plopped their head down on Jesse’s chest. He started up the YouTube video and a weird live action segment of Spider-Man telling the viewers to vote started up.

And after he finished his PSA the actual cartoon played, Stan Lee narrated the footage.

Nostalgia immediately hit Tulip and Lake, they could not stop smiling throughout the whole thing.

“What is Kitty _wearing_?” Nate asked, he was holding back laughter.

“She, my dear little brother, is at the height of 80s fashion,” Lake said and Tulip was snickering next to them.

“ _Noooo_ ,” Nate didn’t believe Lake.

“ _Yeees_. I can show you pictures.”

“Oh show me those pictures.”

Professor X introduced all of the characters to Kitty, including randomly Australian Wolverine.

Even though she knew it was cheesy Tulip kind of forgot _how cheesy_ the show was. She couldn’t stop cracking up. Nobody in the room could.

“So is Toad supposed to be Australian?” Jesse asked after Wolverine’s ‘fight’ with him. Wolverine had called Toad a dingo.

“He's from England,” Tulip replied.

“I thought he was a New Yorker,” Lake said.

“No, he’s from York, England,” Tulip corrected Lake. “Well, at this point in the comics anyway. I think he was a New Yorker in the one show for some reason.”

“Ah.” Lake nodded.

They watched some more.

“Is this where you got it from!” Nate suddenly shouted. “Is this why you say ‘nothing moves the blob?’”

Lake chortled. “Sure is.”

“When would you ever say that?” Tulip asked with a raised eyebrow.

“More times than you’d think,” Lake replied.

They wrapped up the short episode and had a good-natured laugh at it.

“I have to admit, when I was little and watched it for the first time I teared up when Nightcrawler almost died,” Tulip said.

“I did and I’m not little,” Jesse said. “He’s a good guy. I’m glad Kitty warmed up to him.”

“I forgot how much I liked The Dazzler’s design in that,” Lake said with a slightly dreamy look.

Tulip giggled. “ _Of course_ you do. You’re really into 80s fashion.”

“It just looks cool,” Lake defended themself. “Well, mostly. Some of it didn’t age well. Anyway, I also freaking love a cropped jacket and I wish I could have one. But I’m too damn short so they look like a normal jacket with long sleeves on me.”

“I think I saw you tweet about that, you posted a couple selfies and put hashtag: short people problems in the body,” Tulip recalled.

“It’s a major problem,” Lake complained a little more. “I wanna look really cool but my options are limited. At least an oversized jacket looks good too. But I want some variety.”

“An oversized jacket does work better with your love of mom jeans,” Jesse said.

“They’re not mom jeans, they’re high-waisted pants,” Lake argued. “I think they stop being ‘mom-jeans’ once they get distressed. And they make my legs look longer; I’m going to look short no matter what I do, but I have relatively long legs and I'm gonna work with what I've got. Unlike you two,” Lake pointed at Jesse and Nate, “I didn’t shoot up like friggin’ corn.”

Tulip had been staring at her own legs to see how ‘relatively long’ they actually were, but then she looked at Lake. “‘Shoot up like corn?’ How did you end up more Midwestern than me?”

“Ah whatever,” Lake had no retort for Tulip. “I’m small and have a bad case of babyface; I can get away with murder. That’s not a bad deal.”

“You _have_ gotten away with murder,” Jesse said.

Lake chuckled. “That I have.”

“So now that we’re done the show,” Jesse tried to stretch out with Lake still leaning on him. “Should we play some Mario Kart?”

“I’m more in the mood for Mario Party,” Nate said.

“Tulip, you pick,” Lake didn’t care either way. “You’re our guest.”

“Hm,” Tulip took various factors into consideration. “How long does a normal game of Mario Party take?”

“It depends on the board,” Nate replied. “I think we can say about an hour at the absolute most. There’s also this fun rhythm game we can all play together.”

“Is that the one with the marching?” Lake asked.

“Yep,” Nate replied.

“I like that one, it’s fun,” Lake said, they were starting to move towards the Mario Party camp. “It doesn’t take long at all if I remember correctly.”

Tulip kept that in mind. “Maybe we could start off with one game, and then eventually move on to the other.”

“Do you need to phone somebody tonight?” Lake asked.

“Nope,” Tulip replied. “My dad only wanted me to phone him on the first night so he could be sure I made it here safely.”

“Alright so we have plenty of time,” Lake said.

“But we’re getting up early tomorrow,” Jesse said. “We’re going hiking and should leave before it gets too hot.”

“I still don’t see why we can’t play both, do a couple rounds of Mario Kart, and then move on to Mario Party,” Tulip had made her decision.

“You know what, I think that works,” Jesse said, the other two agreed with him.

After Tulip sent a couple texts they started off with Mario Kart as was decided and had a lot of close races. Tulip picked it up very quickly, she had played Mario Kart 8 with some of her nerdier friends in the past. She and Lake were both extremely competitive and Jesse learned to keep back a little bit and let them duke it out. So he can slide into first at the very end.

“That is such a dirty trick and I am so proud of you,” Lake said with closed eyes and a hand on their chest.

Jesse smirked. “I learned from the best.”

“My little boy is all grown up,” Lake sniffed. “He went from scolding me for littering to cheating me.”

“When did I scold you for littering?”

“On the train after the flecs first started chasing the both of us. I think I dropped my wanted poster or something.”

“Oh yeah… It fell out of your pocket when you pulled out a leaf to get Alan Dracula’s attention.”

“You had a wanted poster?” Tulip jumped in.

“Yep,” Lake rubbed their head. “The flecs put them up everywhere on the train. It was such a pain in the ass. I tore down all the ones I saw, but I’m sure I missed some.”

“Do you think they’re still up?” Jesse asked.

“Probably,” Lake replied with a small shrug. “The flecs chasing me are both dead now and there’d be no way for any others to know where the posters got put up. But I’m not on the train anymore so it’s not my problem.”

“That’s true,” Tulip said. “You’re far away from all that.”

“It feels so good to be free,” Lake said.

After refilling their drinks the group started playing Super Mario Party. Tulip got to pick the boards they played on. It had been a while since any of the siblings played so they were all rusty when it came to the minigames which evened out the playing field. Although luck was a major factor and Lake’s was terrible.

“Oh, my gosh,” Tulip was starting to feel fatigued.

The group finished up with the boards and had moved on to the rhythm game Nate and Lake talked about.

“I wasn’t expecting to just be moving constantly,” Tulip said. “I thought I’d get to take a break.”

Lake laughed mischievously. “Nope. No breaks! Only rhythm!”

“We’re almost at the end,” Nate said.

“Being off the train made you soft,” Lake said.

“My normal life is so much more sedentary than my train life ever was,” Tulip said. “I’m not constantly running around, solving problems, dodging dangerous things being flung at me- OH THANK GOD.”

The rhythm game ended while Tulip was talking and the scores were tallied up.

“Why was my stay on the train so much more low energy than Tulip’s?” Jesse asked.

“What!” She glared at Jesse.

“That can’t be true,” Lake recalled everything that they did with Jesse. “Oh geeze. You had to do some athletic stuff like swimming and climbing up a giant Alan Dracula. But yeah, for the most part it didn’t require a ton of physical activity.”

“Did we even do much problem solving?” Jesse thought back to the train again. “I helped Terrance out by taking him out of his car, and I helped Alan Dracula when he got taken over by that parasite, and I helped you, obviously. But… hm.”

“What about that weird grape guy in The Green Car? Didn’t he lose something?”

“Oh yeah!” Jesse had a little laugh. “And for some reason you thought it was a good idea to look in that alligator’s mouth.”

Lake shrugged. “If anybody was going to stick their hand in it, it should’ve been me. I wouldn’t lose a limb to that. I’m too hard. By the way, I saw you taking that selfie while I was being chomped on.”

“I know, I could see you giving me a dirty look when I looked at it later,” Jesse shook his head. “But anyway, that was still just one denizen. There’s must’ve been more helping people, right?”

“Well, the train customizes itself to fit the people it’s trying to help,” Lake clicked their way through the menus of the game. “When you got on it you couldn’t _not_ be nice. So asking you to help everybody you meet probably wouldn’t have helped you out. We ignored the hillbilly feud and still left that car.”

“Yeah… and trying to help the two families get along only made my number go up,” Jesse shuffled his feet. “But I still find it weird that we didn’t help too many denizens out.”

“You were also only there for three weeks,” Tulip spoke up. “I had a lot of cars where I wasn’t given problems to solve. Of course, there was a point in the beginning where I just ran through them as fast as I could and ignored everybody.”

“You did? Why?” Jesse asked.

“I didn’t know what my number actually was,” Tulip replied. “I wasn’t told anything about the train or why I was on there. And One-One told me that once my number hit zero I’d be ‘gone forever’ and naturally I thought that meant I would die. And I thought that if I hurried I could reach the conductor in time to get help.”

“You didn’t get a little video explaining things?”

“You did?!”

Jesse jumped at Tulip’s shout. “Yeah. One-One explained everything and even talked about how it’s good to reach out and get help from most of the denizens.”

Tulip groaned. “Amelia… She screwed up the whole train!”

“Did you at least wake up in a pod?”

“No! I didn’t get a pod either.”

“Huh. Weird.”

“I can’t help wondering how long Amelia was in charge for. She looked so young in her tape…”

“I think we can ‘thank’ Amelia for The Apex,” Lake jumped back in. “Because of her they didn’t get their orientation videos.”

“You know I never say this about anyone…” Jesse took a breath. “I hate The Apex. And I’m mad at Amelia for accidentally helping make that group.”

Lake patted Jesse on the shoulder. “Yeah I hate them too. I still refuse to talk to Grace. She got off the train so yeah, she's a better person now. I guess. But I can’t forgive her.”

“Oh yeah… didn’t you reply to a message from Grace with just ‘piss off’ and then ignored her?”

“She wanted to throw me into the wheels! I saw what those wheels do to a person.”

“Nah, I really don’t blame you. I’m just too nice to do that. But it sure is temping.”

“You’re still in touch with her?”

“Not really, we’re just in a Facebook group for former passengers.”

“There’s a Facebook group for that?” Tulip asked.

“Yep, do you want me to send you an invite?” Jesse replied.

“Nope I’m good. I’m not even on Facebook; if I were we’d be friends on there.”

“That’s true. I should’ve guessed. I’m only on Facebook to keep in touch with family.”

“I’ve been tempted to do that but I’m too gay,” Tulip tried to laugh about it, but she didn’t entirely succeed. “I have some family in the bible belt. And they’ve said some _things_ before I started dating Mikayla...”

“Oh... uh, I’m so sorry,” Jesse brushed his hair back not knowing what to say, his Pride bracelet became visible from under his jacket sleeve.

“It’s okay,” Tulip smiled as she gave Jesse a couple pats to the chest. “The family I actually do care about is supportive.”

“Do you… want to hug it out?” Jesse asked.

It took a second for Tulip to process that sentence, Jesse never asked to hug; he always just walked up with his arms wide open ready to give one. She couldn’t help tearing up as she accepted it. It didn’t take long for Tulip to feel some metal thunk up against her. Obviously Lake joined in.

When Tulip was done they all separated and it hit Jesse that there was a fourth person in the room.

“Sorry about that, it was some pretty heavy stuff,” he said.

“No, it’s fine,” Nate said. “I actually like hearing you guys talk about these things. It… gets me thinking. About myself, I guess.”

And sure enough, some wheels were turning in the young boy’s head.

“Well,” Lake gave Nate an encouraging look, “you have plenty of time to figure yourself out. You don’t need to rush.”

“Yeah!” Jesse also encouraged Nate. “I haven’t. I just know that I fall somewhere under the queer umbrella. I’m into boys, and that’s pretty much all I know for now.”

Nate smiled. “Yeah, you’re right.”

“Anyway,” Lake was feeling awkward, they still weren’t too great in the touchy-feely department. “Would you like to do one more round of Sound Stage before we go to bed?”

Everybody was up for that, even Tulip. She said that she got her break and she was ready for another go.

* * *

Tulip yawned as she walked into Lake’s room after getting ready for bed and when Tulip entered Lake's bedroom she saw them tearing up with their book in their hands. They even sniffled a little.

“What’s wrong?” Tulip asked.

Lake glanced up from their book and a blush spread across their face, even reaching their ears.

“This is a really good book,” they sounded choked up.

“Aw, getting hit hard by a good book’s nothing to be embarrassed about. Is it tropey or something? There’s nothing wrong with that either. I like a good trope.”

“I have such a soft spot for found family,” Lake's embarrassment had eased up. “And this book just gave it to me.”

“Found family, huh,” Tulip sat down on Lake’s bed. “That’s a good one.”

“I think it just really hits close to home, y’know?”

“I definitely see that. Did you know that book was going to be found family?”

“Nope. And that’s why I got like that. It was so well done.”

Tulip noticed the cover. “I’m guessing you got to the part your friends were so excited about.”

“Seems that way. They know my biggest weakness, it’s kinda nice having friends like that.”

Mikayla immediately flashed through Tulip’s mind, although they were more than friends by this point.

She blushed. “Yeah… it is nice.”

Lake looked at Tulip like the Cheshire Cat. “I definitely know who you just thought of. You’ve always had it bad for her.”

“Oh hush up,” Tulip shoved Lake with a laugh.

“So I was right!”

“You didn’t need my confirmation of that.”

As the two were laughing Jesse knocked on the door.

“Yeah come in!” Lake called out to him.

“Just coming in to say goodnight,” Jesse walked into the room with his arms outstretched. “We have an early morning.”

“Night Jesse,” Tulip was the first to hug him. “And thanks for earlier.”

“You’re very welcome, and if you ever want to talk, I’m here for you, okay?”

Tulip nodded. “Thanks.”

As soon as he separated from Tulip Jesse offered Lake a hug and they accepted it.

“Night Jesse, love you,” Lake said.

“I love you too, goodnight,” Jesse returned Lake’s sentiment.

“And remember,” he stopped in the doorway.

“Early morning tomorrow,” Tulip and Lake finished his sentence.

Once Jesse left the room Tulip took a deep breath to prepare herself for approaching something kind of touchy. She debated leaving it for another day, but she wouldn’t be in town much longer.

“What’s wrong?” Lake asked, they put down their book.

Tulip fidgeted with her hands. “I have something to give you, and I’m not sure when it’d be best to do it. It’s… a bit heavy.”

“I see…” Lake hummed in thought. “Well, you’ve mentioned it so now’s as good a time as any.”

“Let’s say hypothetically One-One managed to send me a couple letters and one of them is for you.”

“Let’s say hypothetically on some level I’ll be furious because he gave a letter an exit and not me,” Lake took a deep calming breath. “But a larger part of me would be curious about what that letter would even say. And happy for you.”

There was a silence between Lake and Tulip.

“So did you open your letter?” Lake broke the silence. “I’d be okay with you handing me mine. I’m trying to be less mad at One-One because at the end of the day he _is_ a robot. His programming for giving people numbers is basically ‘did they board the train? If yes, then number. Did they emerge from the train itself? If yes, then they are a denizen and don’t get a number.’ I’m not sure if I’ll ever be able to forgive him entirely. But I’m trying to be less angry at him.”

“I did read my letter,” Tulip replied to Lake’s earlier question. “It was really sweet, One-One was mostly talking about how much he misses me, and drew a picture of me, him, and Atticus. He also talked a little about what he’s doing as conductor.”

“Aw,” Lake actually smiled.

“He also briefly mentioned you to explain who the other letter was for,” Tulip hesitated. “Well, he doesn’t know your name, which makes sense because you named yourself after getting off the train. I’m not sure how I feel about what he was calling you.”

“Rare-foil Tulip?” Lake had a guess, it was what One-One called them on the train.

“Yeah,” Tulip sighed. “Rare-foil Tulip.” She got up and pulled the letter out of her backpack, then she handed it to Lake before sitting back down.

The front of the envelope only said “To Rare-foil Tulip, somewhere in Arizona.”

“Well I’ll give him this, he knew I’d be in Arizona,” Lake tried not the let the ‘name’ on the envelope bother them. “Of course he saw me get off the train with Jesse.” Lake sighed heavily. “I’m not sure I’m ready to open this just yet. But I do appreciate you giving me it, thank you.”

“You don’t ever have to read it if you don’t want to,” Tulip said.

“Did he have anything interesting to say about me?”

“Not especially, he called you punchy though.”

Lake laughed. “Yeah that describes me pretty well. Pretty much the first thing I did was try to punch him. I was really seeing red.”

“I wish you told me sooner about what happened in The Number Car.”

“I didn’t want to ruin your image of One-One. He really was a good friend to you. I mean, he figured out how to get a letter to you. Nothing that comes from the train can leave through an exit. The harpoon pack Jesse was wearing didn’t, my handcuffs didn’t. Oh wait. Waaait… why did my clothes and bracelet leave with me? I stole those while I was on the train.”

“Well,” Tulip squeaked. “I mean, the train has to have _some_ limit so people don’t go home completely naked. They’d probably get arrested for public nudity.”

“I am so glad the train let me keep my clothes,” Lake looked mortified. “Sure I camped out with Jesse but he never saw me naked. We had an agreement, if one of us needed to change or go to the bathroom or whatever the other would turn their back. Oh god, and Nate saw me immediately after I got my exit. Thank you train for letting me have some dignity.”

“It’s kinda weird about what you can and can’t keep,” Tulip kind of wanted to swiftly move along and she felt that Lake wanted to too. “I got to keep my donut holer.”

“What did your mom say when you pulled that out of your backpack?” Lake asked with a chuckle.

“She kinda just shook her head,” Tulip replied. “So I told her that it was an exciting business opportunity.”

“So you gave her the same pitch that cat gave Randall?”

“Pretty much, yeah, and then I laughed about it. I never did tell her what I actually used to it for.”

“Oh yeah, you fought Amelia with it. You’re lucky your shoulder isn’t permanently fucked up.”

“And that is why I never told my mom that part. She would have inspected me every time my shoulder just got a little sore.”

“I bet. Speaking of injuries, it took me months to show Jesse this one,” Lake lifted their shirt just enough to show Tulip the large chip missing from their side.

Tulip immediately blurted out, “Holy crap!”

“Heh,” Lake expected a reaction like that. “One of the flecs managed to snag me when I was first on the run. It was before I became decent at dodging them. I took so long to show Jesse because I figured it’d freak him out or make him feel really sorry for me. That injury is how I learned that I don’t heal from cuts or bleed; it’s actually not that bad.”

“I don’t have any scars I can show you, just a really faint one on my cheek. But only I can see it, probably because I know it’s there.”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing. Jesse also left pretty much unscathed. His side got really bruised from when Sieve threw him into a giant screen. But he didn’t take any permanent damage. Well, physically anyway.”

“He’s a little traumatized, isn’t he?”

Lake shrugged. “We all are.”

“That’s very true,” Tulip laughed. “What a shitty therapy train.”

“I’ll say,” Lake chuckled, and they stretched out. “Well, I don’t know about you but I don’t want Jesse on my case tomorrow. We should probably go to sleep.”

“Yeah you’re right,” Tulip got off of Lake’s bed and settled down on her air mattress and then sent out her texts to her loved ones wishing them goodnight. Then she took off her glasses and put them in the case and far enough away from the mattress to not be at risk of her flailing limbs.

“Night Lake!”

“Night Tulip, see you bright and early tomorrow.”

“Yep, bright and early…”

Tulip saw Lake shake with laughter before they rolled over to go to sleep. And once the snoring started Tulip found that she wasn’t tired just yet. So she did the same thing as on the previous night, and again, Mikayla was awake. But it wasn’t two in the morning so it wasn’t a big deal.

|i know i already said night but i wanna chat|

_[k. whatd u do today]_

|a lot|

|roller rink in the morning w/ Jesse Lake had therapy after therapy and rollerskating was bowling|

|Lake and Jesse invited their friends theyre nice|

|then Mario party w/ this game that’s 5 mins of constant moving we did that a bunch of times|

_[ur gonna be sore tmrw]_

_[bet it was fun tho]_

Tulip smiled.

|it was|

|doubt I’ll be sore tho|

_[u say that. but you will be]_

The image of Mikayla’s face sprang to Tulip’s mind, she knew exactly what expression her girlfriend currently had.

|tomorrow is a hike|

_[a hike in arizona?]_

_[ur gonna die]_

|thanks for your concern|

_[no im serious lake is gonna text me w/ tears in their eyes]_

|the hike is Lake’s idea|

_[i thought they liked you]_

Lake shifted in their bed, Tulip tried harder to stifle her laughter so she didn’t wake them up.

|they do. I think|

_[lake is a little tsun]_

That’s what got Tulip to finally burst out into giggles.

“Seriously, go to sleep,” Lake scolded Tulip while mostly asleep themself. “If I have to drag your ass out of bed tomorrow I won’t be nice about it.”

“Okay, just saying goodnight to Mikayla,” Tulip had almost jumped out of her skin when Lake spoke.

“Fine,” Lake waved their hand. “Tell her I said hi.”

|Lake says hi|

|and ‘get your ass to sleep’|

_[theyre such a ‘rent]_

|kinda are yea|

|anyway. Night, I love you.|

_[I love you too, goodnight.]_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh boy, am I ever excited for Book Three! Just a little writer's note for anybody reading this in the future. I wrote this chapter before Book Three came out, so rip me if Grace and Simon getting off the train is somehow impossible. But I figure they have a couple years to work on their numbers before this happens. I've seen a few people playing around with the possibility of One-One getting a letter or USB stick or _something_ to Tulip and you know what, anything can happen. Why not? So I did it.
> 
> By the way, you really should watch Pryde of the X-Men. It is delightfully cheesy.
> 
> EDIT: Boy that Book Three finale! Right! Uh, just a little warning, I'd really rather not have spoilers posted in the comments section. Even doing little *hint hint* *eyebrow wiggle* comments is pushing it. I definitely get being super excited and wanting to share in that. But yeah. Of course this is coming from somebody who managed to dodge Steven Universe the Movie spoilers for three months while waiting for it to air in Canada.
> 
> EDIT2: Eehhh... it's been over a week so I'll be less strict about spoilers. If you followed me on Tumblr while Steven Universe was on the air then you'd know that was how long I tagged spoilers for with that show. I'd still prefer no specifics but yeah, you can vague a little bit now.
> 
> EDIT3: Wow, you read down this far in this chapter note? This part is just for people who are doing a re-read. I made a little edit to better reflect what happened in canon.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel like I should warn about all the worms. I don't describe them, I just have somebody react to the sheer quantity of them. So it's not like when Peter was fed his breakfast.

A cold clammy hand shaking her arm is what Tulip woke up to.

“Hey, wake up.”

She heard Lake’s voice.

“Look, if you don’t wake up I’m gonna start prodding you with my foot, and I know you don’t want that.”

With a groan Tulip opened her eyes and saw Lake’s face. Well, sort of.

“G’morning,” Lake greeted her with a smile and tired eyes. “I’m going to go take a shower, and when I come back I want you to at least be sitting up.”

“‘Kay,” Tulip wanted to give Lake a little hand wave but she couldn’t move her arm.

And once her brain started to catch up with what was going on Tulip realized that Mikayla was completely right.

She _was_ sore the next morning.

The only part of Tulip that didn’t ache was her right arm.

And of course things weren’t helped by the position she slept in. Tulip’s left arm, the one Lake had been shaking was resting on her forehead. Moving it just wasn’t happening.

With her right hand Tulip picked up her phone and started to scroll through Twitter in an attempt to not fall back asleep. She couldn’t see much of anything without her glasses on but the movement was the only thing Tulip wanted.

No part of Tulip could see the time on her phone while looking at Twitter. So she had no idea how long Lake’s shower took. She just knew that they returned some time later and were looking down with their hands on their hips.

“Geeze! You look like hell!” Lake’s tone was as loving as ever.

“Every part of me hurts,” Tulip whined.

“Oh yeah… that’s a problem you flesh-people have,” Lake stifled their laughter as they squatted down next to Tulip. “Is there any way I can help you?”

Lake did have their sweet moments.

“Well… my arm is kind of stuck, it’ll hurt but can you help me unstick it?” Tulip replied.

“Oh boy,” Lake sighed. “I’ll see what I can do. Should we have like, a word for you shout if I’m hurting you too much?”

“You mean a safe word?”

“Oh god, don’t call it that. And here you were, worrying about people thinking we’re exes.”

Tulip laughed, it helped take her mind off the pain.

“Okay,” Lake put one of their hands on Tulip’s left shoulder and gently took her arm into their other hand. “I’ve actually had to help Jesse out of a similar jam before. He forgot to do his stretches and couldn’t move either arm.”

“Huh, really?”

“Yeah, and because I’m metal and walk around barefoot he could hear me go past his bedroom door,” as Lake talked they moved Tulip’s arm around while supporting her shoulder, “and he called out to me in the most pathetic voice you ever heard. ‘Laaaake, help. I didn’t stretch and now I can’t move.’ So I walk into his bedroom, see him looking like you. And I sigh, because _of course_ Jesse did that. And I moved his arm around a little, and when that one got loosened up he worked on his other. I’m done by the way.”

Sure enough, while Lake was talking they loosened up Tulip’s sore shoulder. She didn’t even feel it happen, the story was a nice distraction from the pain. The arm itself still hurt but at least it could be moved.

“You want me to pass you your glasses?” Lake asked.

“Sure,” Tulip replied, and put on her glasses once they were handed to her. “Thanks. Oh yeah, good morning.”

“All joking aside,” Tulip could finally make out Lake’s concerned expression, “we can postpone the hike. And just have a nice relaxing day here.” Lake poked Tulip on the forehead. “You’re supposed to be having fun while you’re visiting. I don’t want you all miserable.”

Tulip smiled softly. “Thanks. But I’ll be fine; once I start walking around my legs will loosen up.”

“Alright, but if you change your mind just tell me, okay?”

“Okay.”

Lake stood up. “You want some help up?”

“Yeah, I think some help would be nice,” Tulip replied.

Lake circled around so they were in a better position to help Tulip stand; she sat up and held out her arms. Lake took Tulip’s hands in their own and steadied her as she got up.

“Can you walk?” Lake asked.

Tulip shook out her legs. “Yeah, I should be good.”

“So let’s get some breakfast in you. But just a warning, my family is _morning people_.”

“All of them?”

“Nate’s not, but other than him. Yep.”

“Great.”

“But before we have breakfast,” Lake walked over to their desk and looked into Peter’s enclosure. “Good morning Peter.”

Lake misted the one side of Peter’s enclosure the same way they did the previous day.

Then they rejoined Tulip. “Okay _now_ we can go get breakfast.”

One the way to the kitchen Lake knocked on Nate’s door and confirmed he was awake before calling him down too.

“See, told you, he’s not a morning person either,” Lake said.

The second Lake and Tulip walked into the kitchen they were greeted by three voices.

“Good morning!”

Sunshine practically radiated from Jesse and his parents. It was blinding Tulip who was already feeling less than stellar, and Lake didn’t look terribly thrilled either.

“Morning,” Lake said with a small wave.

Tulip managed to also wave but she was too overcome by the scene before her to even say anything.

This is when Nate came in, he was also in kinda rough shape, but was able to muster a cheerful greeting before he settled down at the kitchen table.

“Morning buddy,” with a smile Lake ruffled his hair. Then they opened up the fridge and put a few worms in a container to the side to warm up.

“So Tulip,” Whittney’s voice sounded songlike, “we’re having waffles for breakfast. What would you like on yours? We have syrup, and a variety of fruits, and I think there’s some powdered sugar in the pantry. Although that might be questionable.”

“I’ve only ever had syrup,” Tulip replied, waffles weren’t her favourite because they tended to absorb the syrup and get really sweet and gross.

“You should try strawberries and whipped cream,” Lake said, they knew _why_ Tulip didn’t like waffles or the majority of pancakes. “That’s what I usually have. It’s pretty good.”

“Breakfast doesn’t have to be healthy,” Stephan said. “I admit I have a history of putting bananas and chocolate sauce on mine.”

He chuckled and Whittney gave him a little slap on the shoulder. “Honestly dear. Personally, I like blueberries on mine.”

“I’m the one who got Lake into strawberries on waffles,” Jesse said as he pointed to himself.

“And I just go with syrup,” Nate said.

Tulip shrugged. “I guess I’ll go with the majority, and do the strawberry thing.”

Whittney smiled warmly and prepared the waffles for all the kids with some help from Stephan before the couple made their own.

The strawberries on Tulip’s waffles were fresh and plump, it actually looked really good. And when Tulip tasted it she really enjoyed it, the natural juices from the strawberries was soaking into the waffles like everything does but it wasn’t sickeningly sweet so it wasn’t going to be a problem. Tulip smiled, she should have known Lake would make a good recommendation.

“It’s good right?” Lake asked.

“Yeah, it’s really good,” Tulip replied as she ate some more.

“I’m glad you like it,” Whittney smiled warmly. “So are you three still planning on going on your hike?”

Lake and Tulip exchanged a glance, and Jesse’s expression became concerned.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“I woke up pretty sore from yesterday,” Tulip replied. “So I’ve been waiting to see if I’d be able to go.”

“And if you can’t-”

“-Lake already told me, we can just have a relaxing day here.”

“Yeah! So don’t worry about it. You’re here to have fun.”

Lake smirked. “I also said that.”

“We’re so in-synch,” Jesse’s eyes sparkled.

“I dunno,” Lake shrugged. “If we were then you’d know I already covered all that.”

“Hmmm…” Jesse tapped his chin. “Yeah, you’re right. Oh well! So yeah, Tulip, we were planning on leaving in I dunno, an hour or so. But we can put it off to see how you’re feeling.”

“Not for too long though,” Lake said. “Usually around noon it starts to get pretty hot out. At that point we should move it to the next day.”

“If it’s alright with you guys we should wait that hour and see how my legs are feeling,” Tulip said.

“Alright,” Jesse said with gusto, “there’s our plan.”

Stephan finished off his waffles and wiped his mouth. “I have to go to work now. You kids have fun.”

He got up from the table and left the kitchen with Whittney following him. Which was slightly odd. If Lake had to guess they’d say it was because the two didn’t want to kiss around Tulip.

Once the kids all finished their breakfast they got up from the table. Lake stopped next to the fridge to pick up Peter’s breakfast. And they glanced at a small calendar.

“Oh, so I was right,” Lake muttered. “I need to check on their carrot.”

“Whose carrot?’ Tulip asked, she couldn’t help overhearing Lake.

“My worms, you have to put a vegetable of some kind in with them as a water source. Obviously it eventually goes bad so you need to replace it.”

“Can I watch you replace it?” Tulip asked.

Lake shrugged. “Sure.”

They opened up the fridge and grabbed a couple baby carrots before heading into the garage.

Once Lake arrived they opened up a storage tub with a locking lid and pulled a couple nasty looking carrots out of it. They tossed them into the compost bin before putting in the new ones.

“So yeah, these are the worms I raise up to feed to Peter, and to sell” Lake decided to walk Tulip through it. “They’re a bit too big for him to eat now; you stop a mealworm’s growth by putting it in the fridge. It’s actually really interesting…”

Lake trailed off when they noticed the way Tulip was looking into the bin.

“You look like you have a major case of the heebie-jeebies,” they said, and did their absolute best to not poke fun.

Tulip shuddered. “I knew you were cultivating worms but this is _a lot_. I can’t say I like watching them all moving around like that.”

“Hm, okay,” Lake closed the lid.

“You can still talk about it, I was interested in that.”

“I didn’t have much else to say. Just that it’s interesting how you can halt their growth by putting them in the fridge and you can actually take them out a while later and they’ll go back to growing. It’s so weird. I started my cultivation project with a purchase from a pet store. That also goes into why I take some worms out to warm up before feeding them to Peter. They wake up from their ‘stasis’ and start moving again which stimulates Peter’s hunting instinct.”

“Huh, neat. So it’s kinda like you cryogenically freeze them.”

“That’s exactly it!”

“Okay that is actually pretty cool.”

“It’s time to feed Peter, you wanna watch again?”

“Do you even have to ask?”

Lake giggled. “Nope.”

The two walked up to Lake’s room and they fed Peter the same way they did the previous day, complete with talking to him in a very sweet voice as Tulip watched.

“I usually don’t do this, but how about another worm?” Lake asked Peter before putting it at the bottom of his enclosure. “I’ll still be here by the time he finished his first snack. So if he doesn’t eat it I can take it out of the enclosure.”

“Does this go into the growth thing?”

“Yeah, if a mealworm were to get lost in Peter’s enclosure it can grow into a beetle and hurt him. I wouldn’t want that.” Lake decided to move off the topic. “So how are you holding up?”

“Pretty good,” Tulip replied and she moved from one foot to the other. “I think I can go on that hike today.”

“Excellent!” Lake grinned, they checked the weather app on their phone. “It’s not completely grossly hot out right now. And it shouldn’t get too bad by the time you’re done showering.”

“I figured since I’d get all sweaty I should shower after the hike.”

“It’s up to you, I don’t care either way. We don’t have much else planned for today. So we can swing by here and figure things out after the hike.”

“Sounds good to me.”

“Alright,” Lake stood up, “I guess we’ll change and head out soon. I’ll go tell Jesse as you get started.”

With that Lake left the room to tell Jesse about the plan for the day.

Tulip closed Lake’s bedroom door and changed into some light clothes. Even though it was Fall Arizona seemed to get kind of warm. Lake said that it wasn’t too bad out and she decided to trust their word.

While she was brushing her hair Tulip heard a knock on the door.

“You can come in,” she called out as she tied her hair up into a ponytail.

Lake opened up the door and entered their room.

“Well that was fast,” Lake said as they walked over to their mirror.

“Uuhhh, soooo...” a question has been on Tulip's tongue since breakfast.

“What's up?” Lake asked as they tightened a brass bolt in their earlobe.

“I’ve been wondering… Is your family always...”

“Like that?” Lake finished Tulip's thought.

“Yeeeaaahhh.”

“They are, and wow was that ever _a lot_ to get used to.”

“I’ll bet.”

“It explains a lot about Jesse, doesn't it?”

Tulip laughed. “It really does!”

Lake snorted. “The apple doesn’t fall far with that one. I figured that out on my first night here.”

“No it really didn’t,” Tulip pointed towards the door. “I’m going to go brush my teeth now.”

“‘Kay,” Lake gave Tulip a little wave. “See you in a minute.”

As Tulip was in the bathroom brushing her teeth Lake put their clothes on for the day, a long sleeved shirt underneath a short-sleeved shirt, and some pants that for once didn’t have holes in them. After Lake finished they popped open their bedroom door so Tulip knew she could just come in. And after she was done brushing her teeth, she did.

“I’m guessing we’re leaving soon,” Tulip said.

“Yeah, pretty much,” Lake said with a hat in their hand.

Tulip walked over to her backpack and pulled out a thin hoodie. “I’m kinda surprised you’re going with a hat, you didn’t strike me as the type.”

“Nah, I’m not really; but I’ve blinded Jesse on more than a few occasions during our hikes. So I started covering up.”

“That makes sense.”

Lake looked over at Tulip after slipping on their hat.

“Tulip, you will literally die if you go hiking in a hoodie. I'm not about to explain to your parents that you're _dead_ because you decided to wear _layers_ in _Arizona_.”

“It’s Fall, how bad can it be?” Tulip didn’t expect such a strong reaction.

“You fool! It’s almost a hundred degrees out and this is the _cool_ part of the day. You will McFrickin’ **die.** Take off the hoodie.”

“But I burn so easily...“ Tulip reluctantly took off her hoodie revealing her pasty arms.

“Jesse has sunblock. We'll slather you in that.”

“Okay _fine_. I don’t really go hiking, you think my sneakers will be okay?”

Lake took a bit to think about it. “Because you’re still kinda sore me and Jesse are taking you to an easy trail. So you should be good. But you can borrow a pair of my boots if you want.”

“Will they fit me? I grew since we separated, remember?”

“I did too!” Lake said with a scoff. “I’m now a half-inch taller than when you last saw me.”

“Alright, I’ll try on your boots. Congrats on the half-inch.” Tulip did her very best to not sound sarcastic, she thought she succeeded. Although Lake's face told a different story.

“Screw you. Look, Jesse’s got spare boots. So you can try them out too. _Miss Five Feet Tall_.”

“My feet aren't _that_ big. I went to the roller rink with Jesse so I know his shoe size.”

“Oohhh yeah. How was that anyway?”

“It was fun!” Tulip had a second where she debated not telling Lake too much. But then she figured Jesse would anyway. “We went in with neither of us knowing how to roller-skate but because I can ice-skate I had a head start and taught Jesse. He picked up on it pretty fast.”

Lake smiled. “That’s pretty cool. I’m glad you guys had fun. So like, you go in laps, right?”

“Right.”

“Was there a contest or something too? Like in Bismuth Casual?”

“Not when we were there.”

“Aw, that’s disappointing. I bet that would be fun to watch.”

The two decided to continue their conversation while meeting up with Jesse. But not before Lake passed a hat to Tulip and took the worm shells out of Peter’s enclosure. Lake noticed that Jesse’s bedroom door was closed and shouted through it.

“Hey, where do you keep your sunblock?”

“Sunblock?” Jesse’s voice could faintly be heard, he opened up his door. “It’s in the medicine cabinet.”

“Cool, thanks,” Lake said. “We’ll meet you by the front door.”

“Sounds good to me.”

A quick detour later the group all met up, Jesse had a backpack on so he could bring some snacks and water for himself and Tulip.

* * *

The trail wasn’t too far from the Cosay house so everybody just walked there and it gave Tulip’s legs more time to loosen up. Lake and Jesse kept a close eye on her to make sure she’s fine.

“We’re here!” Jesse cheerfully said while looking at a large hill with some cacti on it.

Tulip pulled out her phone and took a couple pictures. She felt mildly disappointed by how brown it all was. She was expecting something closer to the lake she saw on her first night in town. Then again, she _was_ in a desert.

Lake noticed Tulip’s face and snorted. “I feel like you weren’t expecting so many dead plants.”

“Wha- they’re not dead,” Jesse argued. “They’re uh… a little brown. But they’re still kicking.”

“Mmm hmmm,” Lake gave Jesse their trademark look. “Most people don’t expect living plants to be this sad looking.”

Jesse sighed and placed his hands on his hips. “Yeah… it has been extra dry this year. But! It’s still a nice hike. If we’re lucky we might even see some deer.”

Tulip’s mood lifted. “That’d be cool!”

“It’s pretty likely too,” Lake said, then they shrugged. “For some reason deer are drawn to me. I’m guessing it’s because they want to figure out why I’m shiny and don’t really have a smell.”

“Ooorrr, because you have a _magnetic personality_ ,” Jesse wiggled his eyebrows.

Lake rolled their eyes. “That worked on zero levels.”

“Nice try though,” Tulip said.

“Don’t encourage him,” Lake shook their head. “C’mon, let’s go before the sun gets too hot.”

Jesse hiked up his backpack and let Lake lead along with Tulip.

“You know,” Tulip was used to stepping over branches thanks to walking home from school, “maybe deer are drawn to you because they know you like animals and will be nice to them. You had a literal deer friend. Anyway, I read that animals can just tell when a person will be kind to them. Animals aren't always the best judge of character but...”

“Oh, ow,” Lake put their hands to their chest like they were wounded.

Tulip puffed out her cheeks. “That’s not what I meant and you know it.”

Delight spread across Jesse's face as he looked at Tulip.

“What?” She asked.

“You did the cute cheek thing,” Jesse said.

“I don’t know why you get such a kick out of that,” Lake said. “Anyway, you’re probably right, Tulip. Even when I was shutting everybody out I still had my little soft spot for animals. And the second Alan Dracula put his head on my lap I knew I couldn’t fight it. I made a friend.” Lake smiled. “I wish you could see the way he scratches with his back hoof when I give him ear rubs. It was the cutest thing.”

“That sounds really cute, my aunt has a dog that does that, it’s pretty adorable.”

“So uh… Lake,” Jesse decided to go for it. “You said that when Alan Dracula put his head in your lap you knew you made a friend. When did you know we would be such great friends? For me it was pretty much instantly.”

Lake legitimately had to think about that question. “Well… I found your sunny disposition extremely off-putting at first. So it definitely wasn’t when we first met, or even when we were done with The Family Tree Car. But that being said, in the end you did grow on me somewhat. I knew I could at least put up with you until you got off the train. I kinda was annoyed with how unprepared you were for the train while we were dealing with The Map Car.”

“Well, in Jesse's defense, I only had a backpack full of stuff because I ran away from home,” Tulip said.

“Wait you ran away!” Apparently this was news to Lake.

“You didn't know that?”

“No! I knew you were disappointed that your parents couldn't take you to camp because they screwed up their schedules but I didn't know you _ran away_. Tulip what the hell! It was the middle of winter!”

“In hindsight, yes. That was dumb of me.”

“You didn't wear a knit cap or anything! Just your hoodie, headband, and gloves. They weren't even your warm gloves!”

“I feel like I should apologize to you...”

Lake sighed. “No. No you shouldn't. Your stupid decision ultimately worked out. I owe a lot to your tendency to not think things through. You know, for such a smart kid, you're kind of dumb.”

Tulip shrugged. “Yeah, sometimes.”

With a groan Lake continued to recall when they started to actually _like_ Jesse. “Anyway… After you finished the map, I found that I actually could be friends with you. But then the flecs found me and we had that argument in The Toad Car. So I suppose I finally knew that I wanted to be friends with you after I came clean about my past and we had a genuine conversation.”

“You know in some ways that’s a bit sooner than I expected,” Jesse smirked.

Lake let out a small laugh. “You’re lucky I’ve come to appreciate your sunshine personality.” Then Lake got serious for a moment. “I’m lucky too.” But the moment didn’t last long. “You frickin’ idiot.”

“Love you too,” Jesse said with a smile.

“I think you’re forgetting something,” Lake flicked Jesse on the forehead.

“Ow,” he rubbed the spot. “I forgot how much that hurts. It’s been so long since you stopped being able to reach my head.”

“Oh screw you buddy,” Lake turned back to Tulip. “Well, ready to keep going?”

“Sure,” Tulip replied.

The group walked up the path some more, Tulip occasionally took pictures of the sights, mostly cool looking cacti and trees. And of course Jesse got her to take some selfies with him and Lake, and he took some pictures of just Tulip too.

At some point Jesse stopped the group and made sure Tulip saw that a couple deer were looking at them.

“Amazing,” she quietly said while taking pictures.

“They usually come a little closer,” Lake also kept their voice quiet. “Maybe if we stick around for a bit they will. Or I could try calling them over.”

“Nah I wouldn’t,” Jesse whispered. “You might scare them off. As much as deer like you, they’re still skittish.”

“True. Yeah.”

They waited for a few more minutes and sure enough, the deer slowly inched closer. They approached cautiously and everybody took more pictures. The deer never did walk up any more than that. They were too wary.

But it was still a really cool experience for Tulip. She had seen deer before but never so close up.

“Wouldn’t it be funny if one day Alan Dracula was here?” Jesse said.

“I’d ask how he’d even get off the train but he’s Alan Dracula,” Lake said. “If any denizen could manage that, it’d be him.”

Jesse caught himself almost saying, “You did too.” But he stopped himself, he knew that Lake never considered themself a denizen.

So instead he laughed. “Definitely. Just imagine, going on a hike and then lasers come out of nowhere.”

“And that’s how we’d know, it’s Alan Dracula.”

“Do you think our parents would let us take him home?”

“Hmm…” Lake pondered that. “Well, he wouldn’t be able to stay in the house. There’s not enough grass in there. But as long as Alan doesn’t fire off any lasers around her, I’m sure mom would be okay with us having him over as a guest.”

“Nate would be stoked. And dad would probably be cautious but okay with it. As long as yeah, no lasers happen.”

“Did Alan Dracula actually shoot lasers that often?” Tulip asked.

“Pretty often, yeah,” Lake replied. “He didn’t when he first met me, but after hanging around Jesse for ten minutes it started becoming a bit of a problem.”

“Don’t blame me! I thought he was just a really tame deer until he shot at a rustling leaf.”

“Okay, fair. He acted differently when you were gone too. He turned into some things that would scare the pants off of you.”

“I think you mentioned the giant spider form he took to scare away an old man.”

“Poor guy,” Lake mock-prayed. “Let us hope he didn’t die after I stole his pod.” Lake stopped their playful blasphemy. “Dude didn’t have a number.”

“Hopefully a steward picked him up,” Tulip said.

“Okay you say that, but those things are terrifying,” Lake said.

“They’re probably less terrifying when they aren’t shooting at you,” Tulip put two of her fingers close-ish together.

“ _Barely_. It’s still a lifeless face with a billion tentacles with claws at the ends,” Lake argued.

“Not to mention the fire eyes,” Jesse added.

“Right, can’t forget those,” Lake said.

“Oh, so that was a real thing, and not my imagination acting up?” Tulip asked.

“Yep, very real,” Lake replied. “Also, what’s this about your imagination?”

“Just some nightmares here and there,” Tulip waved it off.

“Tulip,” Lake spoke in a warning tone. “Don’t just brush stuff off. All three of us are a little fucked up thanks to that train. I’m in therapy for a lot of what happened on that thing.”

“And I was for a while,” Jesse said. “I ended up with some form of survivor’s guilt. Which sounds crazy because obviously Lake is alive and well. But yeah. That’s a thing that happened.”

“We’re not trying to pressure you into it,” Lake clarified things. “We’re just saying that you might want to consider it.”

Tulip sighed. “Yeah… you’re probably right. There’s some things that I try not to think about that happened. Like, what happened with Atticus for one. And just seeing a red sine wave sends a shiver down my spine sometimes.” She put her hand to her head with tears welling up in her eyes. “God, just saying that out loud made me realize that I probably do need therapy because of a therapy train.”

Lake shrugged. “Being thrown into a bunch of dangerous situations isn’t the best form of therapy. Go figure.”

Jesse snickered but then he noticed how upset Tulip still looked. “Want a hug?”

With a nod she accepted Jesse’s offer.

“If you’re feeling up to it, we should get back to our hike,” Jesse approached things gently after Tulip ended the hug. “We’re about halfway and I want you to see the view at the end of the trail.”

“Sure,” Tulip said while adjusting her glasses. “I look forward to it.”

“Jesse said we’re halfway there, but it won’t feel like long,” Lake clapped Tulip on the back before the group departed.

“But first,” Jesse pulled a bottle out of his backpack, “have some water. We need to stay hydrated. Lake, you want some?”

“Nah I’m good,” Lake declined his offer with a smile.

After taking a drink of her water Tulip held it against the back of her neck to cool down as the group walked farther up the hill.

“Aren’t you glad I got you to take off that hoodie?” Lake asked with a laugh.

“I dunno, I got it from a store that sells workout clothes so it was probably fine,” Tulip replied.

“Why were you in one of those?”

“Mikayla saw something she wanted to buy and I came in with her.”

“Make sense. But still.”

“Lake’s a total worrywart,” Jesse said, and Lake nudged him in the stomach with their elbow. “What? It’s true. I think it’s really sweet.”

“Ugh,” Lake put their hand to their forehead and tried to hide their smile. “All because I let you wriggle your way into my life. I became such a softie.”

“You were always a softie, admit it.”

“No.”

“Come oooon~ admit it,” Jesse grinned as he teased Lake.

They crossed their arms with a playful pout. “Nope.”

“I dunno Lake,” Tulip quickly caught on to what was happening. “Grumpy and mean are two different things.”

“That’s totally right,” Jesse nodded. “You were always kind of a grump. But with a heart of gold. And that’s why I was so drawn to you.”

“What?” Lake raised an eyebrow. “Jesse you fucking love a ‘bad girl.’ You’re always attracted to them, and thought I _was_ one.”

“I can’t deny that,” Jesse conceded. “But that doesn’t take away from Tulip’s point, grumpy and mean aren’t the same.”

“Okay fine,” Lake was getting a little tired of this, they rolled their eyes. “I always had a soft side. Especially for animals and himbos apparently.”

“Himbos like me?” Jesse looked into Lake’s eyes with a sparkle.

“Yeah, himbos like you,” Lake said with a good-natured sigh.

“I have to give Jesse credit, he owns up to his himbo-ness,” Tulip shrugged.

“I take pride in the title,” Jesse stood in an exaggerated pose. “Everybody loves a good himbo.”

“Good for you,” again, Tulip didn’t intend to sound sarcastic. She had a moment where she wondered if Lake was rubbing off on her.

But Jesse was entirely unfazed.

The stupid conversation made the hike feel a lot shorter than Tulip expected. During it the group reached another point of interest. A bunch of stubby cacti in a weird circle which Tulip promptly took pictures of.

Jesse spoke in a ‘spooky’ voice. “Legend has it that if you leave an object there it will vanish the second you turn your back. And if you decide to step into the circle yourself you will also vanish.”

Lake joined in with their own ‘spooky’ voice. “Some people believe that faeries pick you up. And others say it’s a demon. Honestly though, as long as you don’t give your name to whatever comes you’ll be okay.”

“Mostly,” Jesse added.

“Yeah mostly, you’ll feel a constant shiver in your body,” Lake continued. “But it’s probably fine.”

“Just don’t hike this trail at night,” Jesse kept going. “They say that whatever it is that lives in that circle roams freely. And that is why they close this place off every evening.”

Tulip started to snicker. “Nice try guys. But we’re not camping right now. So scary stories just don’t hit the same.”

She heard a strange deep croaking noise that wasn’t like any frog and almost jumped out of her skin and Lake burst out laughing.

“What were you saying?” they said between the chortles.

“Oh come on!” Tulip glared at Lake as they failed to calm down. “That was a weird and sudden noise!”

“It’s just a raven.”

“Wait that’s what they sound like?”

“Yeah.”

“So weird,” Tulip regained her composure. “Oh yeah, on the subject of birds that make strange sounds. What’s that terrible squawking I hear sometimes?”

“Terrible squawking?” Jesse hummed in thought.

“Steller’s jay,” Lake answered Tulip’s question. “They’re nice looking birds but they sound completely awful.”

Jesse chuckled. “Remember that time you scared one of them?”

“Oh man,” Lake shook their head. “The poor guy. I don’t know how, but he must’ve mistook me for my mom and flew up to me, and then got a better look and made a last-minute swerve and started to squawk at me. And then he pooped everywhere while squawking.”

“Sounds like it was kind of a mess,” Tulip said.

“Well at least the ravens like me,” Lake said.

“There’s actually one that follows Lake everywhere,” Jesse said. “And sometimes she lands on them.”

“I named her Canary,” Lake smiled fondly. “What a good bird.”

“Canary? I thought you were talking about a raven,” Tulip found herself lost.

“Yeah. A raven named Canary,” Lake said, not seeing any problems with it.

“Okay?” Tulip decided to not argue with them. “Anyway…”

“Yeah so Canary loves me,” Lake didn’t bother to explain the nerdy origin of her name.

“You spoil that raven,” Jesse crossed his arms. “She even comes when Lake does a certain whistle.”

“Really?” Tulip excitedly looked Lake in the eyes.

“Uh, yeah,” Lake glanced away, they were feeling a little awkward. “When we get back I can probably show you. Canary is usually hanging around my house.”

“I heard that crows and ravens can be trained, but I didn’t expect you to have done that,” Tulip said.

“Well,” Lake rubbed the back of their head, “I don’t know if I _trained_ Canary, she just likes me.”

“Because you always have food and scritches for her,” Jesse quirked an eyebrow. “You play favourites.”

“Because she landed on me a few times,” Lake reasoned with Jesse. “It probably started because I’m shiny and ravens like shiny things. And now we’ve bonded.”

“Are you ever going to explain the name?” Tulip asked, still hung-up on it.

“No way, this is too much fun,” Lake snickered. “I’ll give you a little hint. How about that? Her name’s origin isn’t _too far off_ from Peter’s.”

“That’s not fair,” Jesse waved his hand, _he knew._

Tulip thought about what Lake’s hint could possibly mean, and she drew a blank. Her best guess was that it came from a comic. But there were way too many out there and Tulip never paid a ton of attention to every superhero.

And she continued to think as the hike continued.

But she also made sure to keep an eye on everything. If Tulip were to be honest, she’d say that it wasn’t a super interesting trail. It’s just way too brown. The cacti were cool at first but they were pretty much all the same kind. Although the company was nice. There were a lot of goofy conversations that happened.

And then, they reached the top.

“Here it is!” Jesse ran up ahead with the biggest smile Tulip had ever seen. “This is a really easy trail like me and Lake said. But the top is also one of the prettiest.”

Tulip’s hopes were low after seeing the rest of it. But she joined Jesse and took a look around.

And wow.

It was totally worth it. It was a good view overlooking the natural parts of the city, Tulip could see Jesse’s house and the lake right near it along with even more greenery and nature. She took a few pictures after staring for a bit.

“Maybe I’m a bit biased,” Jesse continued to talk. “But I think it’s a nice view.”

“It is,” Tulip agreed.

“Was it worth the trip?” Lake asked as they walked next to Tulip.

“Yeah,” Tulip replied. “The hike itself was nice I really liked seeing those deer. And this view is amazing.”

“That’s not all that’s up here,” Jesse said as he called Tulip to follow him and she did.

There was a short path, not connected to anything and very well hidden by the green foliage and at the end of it there was a small pond with tiny fish in it, some blue, and some grey. Tulip squatted to take a closer look.

“You know how my school mascot is a pupfish?” Jesse spoke. “That’s what those are.”

“Huh,” Tulip sounded interested.

“They’re actually really rare and normally can only be found in a couple places but this tiny pond has a bunch of them.”

“They’re so little…”

“Yep, kinda weird that my school has them as a mascot. Usually mascots are cooler or tougher. But maybe my school has one as a mascot because we actually do have some wild ones.”

“I’m glad you picked this trail.”

“Me and Lake thought that a harder one would be more fun; but this one has a lot of really nice and weird stuff.”

“We only know about this pond because Jesse literally stumbled into it when he was a kid,” Lake said.

Jesse blushed. “Yeah… I did kinda fall backwards while trying to take a picture of my family. But I’m glad I did. This is really cool.”

“Is it okay if I take pictures?” Tulip felt it was appropriate to ask because it seemed like a closely guarded secret.

“Sure,” Jesse replied. “Just don’t say where exactly it is if you post the pics online, and we’re good.”

Tulip took the pictures and then watched the fish swim around some more with Jesse and Lake.

Then after taking another look out over the city everybody started to make their way back down the hill.

* * *

“Welcome back,” Whittney greeted everybody with a warm smile. “How was your hike?”

“Good,” they all replied.

“I showed Tulip the little secret at the top,” Jesse said.

“It was really cool!” Tulip exclaimed. “I took so many pictures and sent them to everybody. My parents are at work right now but Mikayla wishes she was here.”

“And how are you holding up?” Whittney asked.

“Pretty good,” Tulip replied. “My legs are all loosened up.”

“That’s good to hear,” Whittney said then she addressed all the kids in the room. “I’ll be making lunch soon. Would grilled cheese be alright with you?”

“Yes!” Jesse immediately cheered.

“Sounds good to me,” Lake replied enthusiastically

“Sure,” Tulip was less enthusiastic. “I like grilled cheese.”

“Okay, I’ll get on it,” Whittney said.

“But first, I’m gonna go take a shower,” Tulip said. “I feel kinda gross.”

“Sure, and while Tulip’s doing that I think I’ll change,” Lake said.

“Alright, sounds like a plan,” Jesse said. “I’ll just be on the couch watching TV.”

“Okay, I’ll hold off on starting lunch until you’re all ready. Just pop into my sewing room when you are,” Whittney said.

Tulip and Lake went up the stairs together while talking about the hike and Whittney got back to her work.

“Here, I’ll deal with the hat,” Lake held out their hand, and Tulip placed her borrowed hat into it.

“Thanks for lending it to me.”

“Ah it’s no problem. I don’t want you bedridden all day tomorrow; I know how easily you get sunstroke.”

Tulip smiled softly. “You remember everything about me, don’t you?”

“Well,” Lake tossed both hats on top of their dresser, “I spent the first fourteen years of my life reflecting you. So it’s only natural.”

“I suppose.”

“But it’s also because I do care about you. There was a point where I didn’t want to ever see you again. But thinking back on it, that was stupid. I’m glad we got back in touch.”

“I’m glad too. But why didn’t you want to see me? If you don’t mind me asking of course.”

With a groan Lake rubbed the back of their head. “Because I was worried that I’d end up just like you. I wanted to become my own person and at the time… that meant not being around anybody who might be able to influence me. So stupid.”

“How long were you on your own for anyway?”

“A couple months.”

“That long, huh.”

“Yeah, the flecs also made it easier for me to not want to get close to anyone. I didn’t want somebody else to get dragged into my problems.”

“And then you met Jesse.”

“Yep. I met Jesse and he just wouldn’t not be my friend and now we’re siblings.”

“You two were made for each other. Jesse got you to come out of your shell, and from what I heard he needed to learn how to be independent.”

Lake smiled. “We really did rub off on each other in the best way. I’m thankful he was so delightfully grating.”

Tulip snorted. “You know what, that does sum his personality up pretty well.”

“He sang a song about empathy to a tree. He learned that song when he was like, _six_. He also sang it to me. We had to play nice to get to the bottom of the tree which was where Alan Dracula fell to which of course meant I had to let him sing to me.”

“What song was it?”

“Oh yeah, you know a lot of songs… He said it was called ‘When I Look at You I See Me’ and it was obviously written for little kids.”

“Doesn’t ring a bell. Anyway, I’m happy I got to really know Jesse so I can put a face to all of your stories and immediately imagine that goofball doing those things.”

“He’s one of a kind, that’s for sure,” Lake walked over to Peter’s enclosure and took a look inside. They couldn’t see him but still gave him the late greeting.

“I’m going to actually go shower now. See you in a bit.”

“Yeah see you.”

After Tulip left the room Lake looked around in Peter’s enclosure some more and still couldn’t find him. So they checked the door to make sure it was fully closed and it was.

“Hm. Maybe he just wants to be alone today. I guess even spiders get like that sometimes.”

Lake walked over to their dresser to pull out a change of clothes and saw a familiar envelope. A part of Lake wanted to open it up and read it. However when they considered doing it they felt an unease in their gut and decided against it.

So Lake ignored it and took out an old shirt of theirs. The pants they were already wearing were fine.

Then after a quick outfit swap Lake took their comb in hand and went over to their mirror and added some styling putty to give their hair a little more shape.

Once they felt satisfied Lake took another look for Peter and after not seeing him they joined Jesse on the couch.

“Hey, it’s classic Lake,” Jesse said when he saw them. “You haven’t worn that shirt in a while.”

“I was feeling nostalgic,” Lake said as they flopped onto Jesse. “Me and Tulip talked a little about when I first met you.”

“Aawww.”

“I called you delightfully grating.”

“Aaaawwww.”

Lake chuckled.

“Your hair always smells nice after you style it,” Jesse as he often did, didn’t think before he spoke.

“You’re lucky I know you’re not a creep,” Lake poked him on the nose. “That’s seriously a weird thing to say.”

“Which is why I only say that sort of thing about my best friends.”

“Don’t go smelling people, you weirdo.”

“I _don’t_ we’re just really close together right now and I noticed it. You laid down on me.”

“I know,” Lake half-hugged Jesse.

“You really are feeling nostalgic.”

“I don’t think I tell you enough how much I appreciate you.”

Jesse smiled softly. “Don’t worry. I know.”

“Yeah… but I should still say it more.”

“You do every night when we say ‘I love you’ to each other.”

“You’re right.”

“And I’m doing the same. I hope you do know I appreciate you.”

“Of course I do.”

The two watched TV for a little bit while waiting for Tulip to come downstairs.

“Tulip gave me a letter,” Lake wasn’t planning on bringing that up. “It’s from One-One.”

“Really? Wow. How’d he get a letter to her?”

“No clue. But he is the conductor so he can do anything he wants… As long as it doesn’t go against his programming.”

“Have you read it?”

“Nope. I considered reading it but I got an awful feeling in the pit of my stomach so I decided against it.”

“Understandable. If… you want me to be there while you read it just ask.”

“I’ll think about it. But I might also choose to never read that letter.”

“Which is also understandable.”

“I feel silly for avoiding it like this. But also…” Lake let out an exaggerated groan.

Jesse couldn’t stop himself from shaking with laughter. “Sorry, sorry. I don’t like him either.”

“You’re the best.”

“You are too.”

Jesse looked Lake in the eyes and noticed something else was off with them. “Everything okay with you?”

“It’s nothing major, not yet anyway. I’m just… concerned about something. If it does get worse I’ll tell you.”

“Promise?”

“I promise.”

It was at this point when Tulip stopped feeling awkward about entering the room. That conversation sounded a lot more serious than the usual goofery that happens between Jesse and Lake.

“Hey guys,” she said with a wave before sitting on the chair. Those two looked too comfy to move them.

“Hey.” “Sup.”

“You two are relaxed,” Tulip said.

“We got a lot of fresh air,” Lake said.

“I don’t think that affects you though,” Jesse pointed it out.

“Who says it doesn’t?”

“I’ve never seen you pass out on the couch after a full day running outside. Meanwhile I have.”

“Okay that’s fair.”

Nate came into the corner of Lake’s eye.

“Oh hey,” Lake called out to him. “While you’re up can you tell mom that we’re ready for lunch?”

“Got it!” Nate jauntily walked back out of the room to head into Whittney’s sewing room.

“That’s the great thing about having a little brother; you can get him to do things you’re too lazy to,” Lake smirked.

Jesse laughed. “No, that’s just the good thing about having a Nate. A lot of little siblings would tell you to do it yourself. For example, _you_ have done that to me.”

“Meh,” Lake lazily waved their hand. “We’re basically the same age. I barely count as your younger sibling. You _just_ turned seventeen.”

“Jesse’s still almost a year older than you,” Tulip quickly pointed that out. “Isn’t your birthday April 4th? And his is August 20th?”

“Exactly, Jesse’s barely older than me,” Lake said. “I don’t have to follow the little sibling rules. Also, appreciate you remembering my birthday.”

“I remember all my friends’ birthdays,” Tulip said.

Lake smiled, technically their ‘birthday’ would be when Tulip was first reflected. It would have been easy to say that it was March 3rd or 4th and be done with it.

Whittney poked her head into the room after Nate ran back into it and sat down on the free seat.

“I’m just about to start lunch now,” Whittney said. “I’ll call you when it’s finished.”

A chorus of kids rang out with “okay” before they went back to their own thing.

“So Nate, what are you up to today?” Tulip asked.

“Hmmm…” Nate stretched out. “I’ve been trying to figure out some rules for a game to play with my friends. All the really fun card games are still banned, and the ones we played with our own homemade cards got banned too. Some arguments happened because of power creep.”

“Power creep is when the new cards are stronger than the old cards, and keep getting stronger, right?” most of Tulip’s TCG knowledge came from Lake ranting on Twitter about Duel Links’ PvP matches.

“Right,” Nate confirmed it. “So I kind of get why the teachers put their foot down on that one. But now me and my friends are kinda back to square one. So we’re trying to come up with rules for regular playing cards. And we can still make our own art if we want. The teachers didn’t have a problem with that. Well… mostly. I got in trouble for a ‘Lake original’ card.”

“Uff,” Lake looked apologetic. “Yeah sorry about that one.”

“Oh no, it’s fine,” Nate waved it off. “It was my bad for asking for something like an Archfiend from you. And it wasn’t really _trouble_ , my teacher was just concerned about me and I had to talk to somebody about it.”

“What did you draw?” Tulip got hung-up on it.

“I mean, it was a demony type thing, I dunno,” Lake shrugged. “I’ll show you later.”

“It really wasn’t that bad,” Nate said.

“I think your standards are getting a little messed up from hanging out with me and Lake,” Jesse said.

“Wait, _you?”_ Tulip wouldn’t have ever guessed.

“I’m mostly talking about telling some stories about train stuff, and yeah, I’ve dabbled with a zombie deck before I got tired of Duel Links,” Jesse said. “And vampires too of course.”

“Of course,” Tulip said. “If I remember correctly the vampire archetype is very pretty though, like, uncharacteristically so.”

“Now see, your view of Yu-Gi-Oh got skewed because of Lake,” Nate said. “There’s a lot of pretty and cute cards too. They’re not all messed up zombies and demons.”

“Don’t forget the really beefy dragons,” Lake pointed at Nate.

“Yeah those too,” Nate pointed back. “There’s also normal dragons; not all of them are Strong Wind Dragon.”

“But seriously I actually have had to talk to my school’s guidance counselor about my art,” Lake recalled what happened with an annoyed sigh. “In art class we were asked to draw an interpretation of the most recent dream we can remember; I only remember my nightmares so I drew that. And apparently my drawing was ‘graphic’ and ‘disturbing’ and ‘a sign that I need therapy.’”

Lake felt all the eyes on them at that last part. “...Okay that last one might have been accurate considering I am in therapy now. But still!”

“Back to where we were before getting off-track,” Tulip wasn’t exactly sure how to follow up on what Lake said. “Nate it is really cool how you and your friends are making up games.”

“We’ve been doing it for a few years now; every time something we like gets banned we throw up our hands and go ‘welp’ and think of something else,” Nate said. “It’s been fun. Also frustrating though. Is your school really strict too?”

“Mine?” Tulip thought about it, she tended to play more video games than card games. “I’m not sure. I know the supervisor for recess and lunch break would always have us go outside instead of staying in the boot room to play games.”

“Boot room?”

“Yeah you know, it’s a room that connects to outside where you knock the snow off your boots, or sit in when it’s winter and freezing.”

“My school doesn’t have one of those.”

“That… makes sense. You don’t have winters like I’m used to.”

“And this is kind of a big city, you need to be able to cram as much into as small of areas as possible, the boot room was pretty big,” Lake said.

“Hmm…” Tulip thought back a few years; to when she was in elementary school. “I didn’t think you were there. But yeah, it was pretty big.”

“Puddles,” Lake pointed out. “They’re reflective.”

“Ah right, puddles.”

“There was this one kid who broke a light, right?”

“Oh yeah! He decided to kick a ball into the air and it hit one of the fluorescent lights and shattered it.”

“And everybody got rushed out of the room because there was glass and powder everywhere.”

“He got into so much trouble…”

Taking that trip down memory lane with Tulip was more fun than Lake expected. The two did some more reminiscing before Whittney called the kids for lunch.

But before Nate went into the kitchen Lake pulled him to the side with a serious expression.

“Now,” they thought of how to word things, “there’s something I need to ask you. I’m not mad, and I won’t get mad, I promise.”

“Okay?” Nate had never seen Lake do this before, he grew concerned.

With a sigh Lake put their hands on Nate’s shoulders and tried not to grip them. “Did you open Peter’s enclosure?”

“No, I would never without your permission,” Nate glanced away, and then back at Lake. “Why?”

“I can’t see him so I was wondering if he got out somehow,” Lake replied. “Don’t worry, I believe you. I just… wanted to cover my bases.”

“If I do see Peter I’ll tell you.”

“Thanks,” Lake ruffled Nate’s hair. “Hopefully it won’t come to that, and he’s simply hiding under a leaf.”

“Are you ready for lunch?”

“Yep.”

After everybody got settled and started to eat Whittney asked if they had any plans for the afternoon.

“I dunno,” Jesse replied. “We could go souvenir shopping today if Tulip wants to.”

“I’m not sure about that one,” Tulip said. “I was thinking about doing it tomorrow before I left. I kind of wanna sit down for a bit.”

“Alright, we can have a day of video games, we definitely don’t have a shortage of those. Mario Sound Stage is always fun.”

Tulip gave him ‘the look.’ “Jesse, I just finished saying I want to sit down. That is _way_ too much physical activity for me right now.”

“Alright, alright, we’ll stick with games we can play on the couch,” Jesse noticed that Lake was quieter than usual. “That sound good to you?”

“Huh?” Lake’s attention was pulled away from their sandwich, it took a second for their mind to catch up to the conversation. “Oh, uh. I might join in. I’m not super in the mood to play games so I might end up reading instead.”

Jesse frowned. “Okay.”

“I’m fine, don’t worry so much,” Lake insisted on it. “After lunch I’ll grab my book and then join you guys. Depending on what you play I might play too.”

“Sure!” Jesse did his best to sound cheerful. “Sounds like a plan.”

He exchanged a concerned look with Whittney.

And they silently agreed that this might be one of those times where it’s best to not press things with Lake. So lunch continued on like it normally would. The main conversation was Nate workshopping his card game with Tulip.

* * *

By the time Lake came into the living room with their book everybody was settled down on the floor listening to Nate explaining the rules to his game. He had a notebook in his hand that he was double-checking with.

“Hm,” Lake settled down in the big comfy chair and half-listened while reading.

“And yeah, that’s basically it,” Nate finished his explanation.

“Seems simple enough,” Tulip said, meanwhile Jesse was completely lost. “But I might need to refer to your rulebook from time to time.”

“Of course; that goes for every card game,” Nate blushed. “And even I don’t remember all the finer details and I invented the game.”

Nate passed a deck of playing cards to Tulip and she shuffled it, this was when she noticed that he had another two with him.

“Do you collect playing cards?” Tulip asked as she set up her field.

“Hm? Oh! Not on purpose,” Nate replied with a blush. “I just see decks for things I like, and think the art is nice. So I buy them.”

“I’d like to take a look at your cards later.”

Nate did a happy little gasp. “Yeah! Of course!”

He set up his field while fidgeting.

The game Nate set up used the values of the playing cards as the values for the ‘monsters’ on the field. A player could also opt to use cards to buff their own monsters for a turn, or save them to have something stronger to defend themself with.

It was relatively simple, but offered its own complexities because once a card was taken out, it was gone for the rest of the game. The basis of Nate’s rules were clearly from Yu-Gi-Oh, there was even a defense mode. But instead of life points, there were ‘six prize cards’ like in Pokémon.

Although through testing the game out with Tulip, the two realized that system was unbalanced because it just made the winner stronger and carried on their momentum.

“That is a good point…” Nate hemmed and hawed.

“Prize cards in Pokémon are less of a problem because the game has a lot more ways to protect your own cards,” Tulip said. “But there’s no way for you to do that with this.”

“We can try working in the joker cards somehow; but then we’d have to specify what they do. If we let the player make up an effect then that’d just lead to more power creep.”

“How about you have a list of… I dunno, four or however many, effects that the joker can have and the player picks an effect.”

“That could work, but each deck only has two jokers so we’d still have that momentum problem.”

“True. True. The only solution would be to switch to a point-based system or let the player who lost their card get the ‘prize card’ instead.”

“Hm,” Nate gave it more thought. “Jesse, what do you think?”

Jesse was officially very lost.

“Okay,” Nate wasn’t totally surprised. “Lake, do you have any opinions?”

“Huh?” Lake looked up from their book. “I think a points system would work; especially because you can adjust them easily to change the length of the game. So you can make the games shorter or longer depending on how late you got out of class. You can do that with prize cards too, but it’d be more awkward and affect the balance of the game. If you ask me.”

After finishing speaking Lake went back to reading.

“Good point,” Nate took that into consideration too. “Yeah, I think we should change over to points instead. Try that out for a bit.”

“No game is perfect on the first try,” Tulip said, hoping to give Nate some encouragement. “Which is why it’s good to workshop things. At game design camp we all anonymously played each other’s games and got feedback. The creator of the game was hidden to avoid any biases.”

“Did it help?” Nate asked.

“A ton,” Tulip replied. “Some of the feedback was discouraging because I wasn’t used to it. The second year I went was a lot better.”

“Are you going this year too?” Jesse asked. “That’s late November, right?”

“I’m not sure,” Tulip replied with a thoughtful look. “Last year was more of the same so I probably wouldn’t learn anything new. But it was fun hanging out with people who share my interests. And yeah, if I did go I’d leave on November 18th.”

“I… can’t think that far ahead,” Jesse confessed. “The camp is a weekend thing, right?”

“Right, I’d leave on Friday and come home on Monday. You learn a surprising amount in that time.”

“You always sound like you had a ton of fun,” Nate said as he gathered up his cards and shuffled his deck.

“That’s because I did,” Tulip smiled fondly as she also collected her cards. “Maybe I will go again this year.”

“I actually have some rules made up for four players too,” Nate said, he looked at the chair and saw that Lake’s interest was piqued. “I’d like to try that out too. I could get my mom if I need to but there’s just something about parents that makes them unable to remember rules for games.”

“I can join in,” Lake put down their book. “Just give me a bit to read the rules.”

“Of course!” Nate passed the rulebook to Tulip who passed it to Lake.

As Lake went over the rules Jesse and Tulip played a round against each other. And once they were done Lake sat on the floor and was handed a deck. Nate even let them pick which one.

The group played a few games with four players and tried out a variety of win conditions to suss out what would be best overall.

“We should probably keep it consistent between game types,” Nate said. “So I guess we’ll stick with the points. But I did like what the prize cards did in the four-way matches because you have multiple people to target so it was a little less unfair.”

“I feel like if Lake got their hands on a few prize cards then we could have seen how unfair they could be,” Jesse said, just because Lake was feeling a bit down, that doesn’t mean he can’t poke fun at them.

Lake groaned. “Why is my luck so terrible?”

“You probably used up all your good luck on the train,” Tulip joked.

“Not even three months and my whole lifetime’s worth of luck ran out, rip me,” Lake sounded a lot more like their usual self. “Anyway, I can understand why you want to keep the rules consistent, it would make things a lot simpler for your players to keep track of. But have some faith in them too. I think there are enough board games out there that alter the rules for multiple people for there to be _some_ precedent.”

“That’s true,” Nate hummed in thought. “Well! Whatever, I’ll figure it out. Thanks guys for helping me out with this.”

“Ah it’s no problem,” Jesse said, Lake and Tulip nodded. “We’d do it any time.”

“I appreciate it,” Nate smiled. “Hey Tulip, do you have Tabletop Simulator?”

“I think I do?” Tulip mentally went through her Steam games. “I’ll have to check when I get home; I have a lot of Steam games.”

“Alright, because… if you wanted to we could work on this some more on there.”

“You know, I would like that. Anything for a fellow game designer.”

Nate giggled. “But, I think I’m done sitting on the floor. Let’s play some video games now.”

Everybody let Lake choose where they want to sit, and they decided to recline on the chair and read some more. So all the others went on the couch and played a variety of multiplayer games until dinner time.

* * *

After dinner everybody watched some game shows together before the parents decided to make themselves scarce and let the kids play some more video games. Lake joined in for a little bit but their heart still wasn’t in it. Jesse wanted to ask them again what’s wrong and eventually decided against it.

Although he did regret that decision when Lake vanished upstairs…

Lake walked into their room and decided to look for Peter some more but with no success. And reading their book lost its appeal so Lake sat down at their desk and thought of what might help snap them out of their funk while hoping to see an adorable little spider come out of hiding.

Whenever one of her kids’ doors was left open Whittney would take a quick glance into their room just to make sure everything was okay. It really was just Lake who always kept the door shut because they needed a break from being around people; Whittney was sure that things were only different because Tulip was staying over. 

Like usual Whittney glanced in and noticed Lake sitting at their desk with their chin resting on their arms and looking into Peter’s enclosure. Which was fairly normal for them. 

But something felt off. So Whittney walked in.

“Is everything okay?” she asked. 

Lake silently shook their head before responding quietly. 

“I haven’t seen Peter since this morning.”

“I see,” Whittney leaned in to take a look in the enclosure too. “Maybe he’s just feeling shy with us having a guest over.”

“I’m worried he died... Spiders don’t live very long,” Lake fought the tears pricking the corners of their eyes.

“I doubt that’s the case,” Whittney made sure to speak gently. “Peter’s been eating more than usual lately, right?”

“Oh no... what if I overfed him?”

“Don’t let your mind go there. You did a lot of research before taking Peter in; everything said that a jumping spider won’t eat if it’s not hungry.” Whittney rubbed Lake’s back. “And getting back to what I was saying. Typically when an animal is at the end of its life it’ll eat _less_ , not more.”

Lake let out a very depressed sigh.

“Have you looked up what’s going on with Peter?” Whittney asked.

“I’m too afraid to.”

“Okay,” Whittney patted Lake’s back. “I’ll look it up for you.”

She sat down on Lake’s bed with her phone and googled stuff about feeding a jumping spider. She figured that looking up what hiding means would just bring up death.

After reading multiple posts on websites about spider care Whittney smiled and walked back up to Lake.

“I think you’ll find this exciting,” she said. Lake wasn’t particularly receptive, but they were listening; Whittney could tell. “When a jumping spider is in pre-moult it eats a lot more than usual to prepare. And then a jumping spider makes a nest and hides in it until the moulting process is done.”

This got Lake to finally perk up. “So Peter is probably okay?”

“I’m sure Peter is fine, dear. Maybe if you look you can even find his nest. But don’t disturb him in it.”

“I should research spider moulting then,” Lake said as they scanned Peter’s enclosure again trying to find a new collection of silk. “That way Peter can have a good one.”

“And I’m sure he will. You give Peter so much care and attention. He’s a spoiled little spider.”

Lake giggled. “Yeah, I do spoil him a little. Peter ate two worms today.”

“He did?”

“Yeah, I guess if he is moulting then he really needed his energy.”

“Exactly. Have you seen his nest?”

“Nope, maybe it’s not done yet. I’ll check again in the morning.”

“Lake, _I know you_. You’ll check at least twice before you go to bed tonight.”

“You’re totally right, I will,” Lake glanced away for a moment and then hugged Whittney, getting a warm embrace in return. “Thanks mom.”

“You’re welcome hun.”

Whittney kissed the side of Lake’s head. 

“Is this why you’ve just been quietly reading?” Whittney asked as kindly as she could.

“…Yeah,” Lake mumbled. “I know it was rude of me. But I just wanted to lose myself in some fun fiction for a bit.”

“I’m sure Tulip understands so don’t worry about that, okay?” Whittney rubbed Lake’s head.

“Okay, I’ll tell her what was going on, her and Jesse. I did kind of promise him I would.”

“Did you hear what the plan was for tonight?”

Lake shook their head. “I just assumed it was more games.”

“Nope, stargazing. Would you like to help me gather up some nice comfy blankets to lie on?”

“Sure,” Lake stood up. “Are we stargazing next to the lake then?”

“Yep, it’s a beautiful lake and a beautiful night. So you guys should get some fresh air.”

“That sounds good to me.”

Lake followed Whittney out into the hallway and she piled them up with blankets, but not to the point where they couldn’t see.

“Do you have them all?” Whittney asked as she grabbed a couple blankets for herself.

Then the pair joined everybody else across the street and near the lake. They all laid out the blankets and sat down on them.

“By the time you come back inside me and Stephan will probably be asleep,” Whittney said. “Try not to stay up too late, okay?”

“Okay,” the kids said, they were used to that warning.

Whittney gave everybody goodnight hugs before she went back inside.

“I was kind of… off earlier,” Lake said, they rubbed the back of their head. “I was worried about something and didn’t want to really _talk_ about it.” They sighed. “I hadn’t seen Peter since I fed him this morning and I was worried he was lost or worse. I did talk to mom about it, and we’re pretty sure now that he’s just in pre-moult.”

“It’s okay,” Jesse said. “I’m just glad it all worked out.”

“Yeah, I’m with Jesse,” Tulip said.

“I’m happy that Peter’s safe,” Nate said, he obviously already knew what was going on with Lake. “So Peter’s going to get bigger, right?”

“Right,” Lake replied. “I’m not sure how much bigger because he’s such a tiny type of spider. But he is getting bigger. Which also means Peter’s not as old as I was worried he might be.”

Lake stretched out. “Anyway, how about we look at those stars? Tulip, you still remember your constellations?”

“Of course,” Tulip looked up at the sky. “But I don’t really see any…”

“There’s probably too much light pollution,” Lake flopped down. “We’re still in the city.”

“There’s more stars than usual right now,” Jesse said as he looked up at the sky. “But yeah, there’s not that many. I’ve seen a lot more while out camping with my family.”

“That was fun,” Lake felt up to reminiscing. “Well, except for that one dad who was near us and kept complaining about his kids not getting off their phones.”

“He was a bit of a damper on things. But other than that. It was a lot of fun.”

“Yeah, I never had s’mores before, they were gooey and delicious.”

“I love s’mores!” Tulip exclaimed. “They’re the best part of camping.”

“They were really good, but I’m a simple person,” Lake put their hand to their chest. “I enjoy looking up at the sky. And watching the stars reminded me of the first time I ever felt relaxed. It was my first night with Alan Dracula and we fell asleep under the night sky.”

Lake yawned.

“And it sounds like you’re about to do the same now,” Jesse said with a yawn of his own; he lied down.

“Look who’s talking,” Lake wiggled their way over to Jesse so they could touch him.

“Gimme a break, yawns are contagious,” Jesse rested his cheek on top of Lake’s head.

“So Tulip,” Lake fought their heavy eyelids. “Do you see anything interesting at least?”

“I think I see a couple planets,” Tulip replied. “It’s subtle but they have more of a colour than the stars. Ope. That one was a plane. Okay, I see one planet.”

“Do you know which one?” Nate asked.

“Hmmm… nope,” Tulip replied honestly. “I know my constellations but my knowledge of planets is a little shaky. If I had my telescope I could probably make a guess.”

“Do we have a telescope?” Lake asked, half-asleep.

“Nah,” Jesse replied. “If we did we would have brought it along with us.”

“True.”

“That’s too bad,” Tulip finally got herself fully comfortable on the blanket and she gazed up at the sky. “The stars are still pretty though.”

“What’s that flashing one?” Nate pointed up at the sky.

“That’s a satellite,” Tulip replied.

“Oh.”

“If it’s a flashing light then chances are it’s a satellite dish.”

“Huh. I see. I… should have guessed.”

“Nah. Space is weird. It’s weird and fascinating. I’m looking forward to when humanity can understand more of it.”

“I heard that people know more about space than the deepest oceans.”

“We do.”

“I’m looking forward to us figuring that out, personally. I like the ocean, and there’s so much cool stuff living in there.”

“I’ve seen some of the weird creatures they found.”

“Do you think aliens exist?”

“It’s a big world out there, I’d be shocked if they didn’t. And I also wouldn’t be shocked if aliens made the train. How about Atlantis?”

“Oh! That’s a good one. I think so. But it’ll take a very long time for people to find it.”

“Hm. Lake, Jesse, what do you two think?”

Tulip turned around waiting for a response but instead saw the two sleeping next to each other. Lake’s head resting on Jesse’s chest, and Jesse’s cheek smushed up against Lake’s head.

“Oh,” Tulip wasn’t quite expecting that sight. “That didn’t take long.”

With a grunt Lake moved their hand and smacked Jesse in the face.

Tulip cringed. “Ouch.”

“Jesse’s used to it,” Nate said with a giggle. “That always happens to him when he sleeps with Lake.”

“It’s not even late,” Tulip said with a soft smile. “We’ll just have to remember to wake them up when we head inside.”

“So anyway,” Nate decided to continue the conversation from earlier.

* * *

Lake was **_not_** happy to be woken up. But they understood that sleeping outside in the real word all night was a no-go.

Not that the neighbours would call the cops on them and Jesse… But still.

“You and Jesse were really out,” Tulip said as she turned on the fan. It was a pleasant night outside but the room was still too hot for her liking. “I’m guessing he won’t swing by here before bed tonight, he looked like he was about to pass out.”

“It wasn’t even that intense of a hike,” Lake spoke from their bed. They stretched out. “But I guess it was enough fresh air to knock him out.”

“So you and Jesse said that you picked out a few trails, did they all have a nice surprise at the top?” Tulip sat down on the air mattress. She and Lake were already winding down for the night.

“Not really, no. But the overall hike would have been nicer.”

“I’m happy we went on the trail we did then. It was really worth it.”

“I’m glad. But I do wish you could have seen more greenery. I swear, the trail usually isn’t that dead. We’re just in the middle of a drought.”

“You’re in a desert.”

“Yeah… but there’s usually _some_ rain to keep the plants alive. The hike we did is usually kind of brown anyway, just not that brown.”

“Don’t worry about it so much. I had fun. Was that story you and Jesse told me about that circle of cacti real, or just you two making stuff up?”

“Just making stuff up on the fly. That’s why we mixed so many legends and mythology.”

“I should have guessed.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“That’s just how you and Jesse are. Two big goofs.”

“Yeah I suppose. Anyway, what time is your flight home?”

Tulip pulled out her phone and double-checked her calendar. “I have to be at the airport before two.”

“That gives us plenty of time for souvenir shopping.”

“I still haven’t decided on what I want to pick up.”

“You’ll find something, I’m sure.”

“I want to get something really nice for Mikayla, I’ve been tormenting her with all my pictures.”

Lake chuckled. “She really is envious of you, huh.”

“Extremely so,” Tulip giggled.

“You’ve been talking to her every night, right?”

“Yeah, before I go to sleep. It’s been nice.”

“Are you feeling homesick at all? I know I did when I came over to visit you.”

“Not really. But this isn’t the first time I’ve been away from home.”

“Are we counting the train?”

“Oh god no. I did get homesick on the train anyway. Once I stopped being mad about missing camp and their divorce I really started to miss my parents.”

“So at camp you weren’t homesick?”

“The first time I was, but not the second time.”

“Hm. Maybe my problem was that it was my first time away from home after finally having one.”

“Definitely. I used to always get homesick on road trips and as you know, I was always with my family.”

“So I guess my experience wasn’t that weird.”

“Not at all!”

“Thanks.”

“No problem.”

“Well,” Lake put their phone back on their side table. “I think I’m about ready to sleep. Do you want me to wake you up tomorrow?”

“I think so,” Tulip did the opposite of Lake, she opened up Twitter. “It was nice having breakfast with everyone.”

“Even with how sunny they all were?” Lake stuck out their tongue.

“Yeah even with them being really intense morning people.”

“I wonder if they’ll ever rub off on me.”

“Doubt it. You’re too grouchy and stubborn. It’d be terrifying if you did wake up one morning like them.”

Lake snickered. “That’d be the day. Which would be scarier; me as a morning person, or Jesse waking up like me?”

“The Jesse one,” Tulip didn’t even hesitate.

“Definitely. I have seen Jesse in a bad mood before; everybody has those days, right. And wow, what a strange experience.”

“I can’t even begin to imagine,” Tulip yawned. “But yeah, everybody has their bad days.”

“Sounds like you’re ready to sleep too,” Lake reached out to their lamp. “Night Tulip.”

“Night Lake.”

The light was flicked off and Lake rolled over in their bed and curled into a ball.

Tulip scrolled through Twitter and as usual Mikayla was still up.

|im already pretty tired so I wont talk long|

_[u went on a hike right]_

_[no wonder ur tired]_

|it wasnt very hard but it was very hot|

|at the top was a small pond full of pupfish|

|Jesse said theyre super rare|

_[i looked them up and they are u can only find them in two bodies of water normally]_

|REALLY??|

|wow no wonder Jesse wanted me to see|

_[and you saw some deer too]_

_[any of them alan dracula? ;p]_

|not enough lasers|

_[lasers?]_

|apparently he shoots them constantly|

Tulip could barely keep her eyes open.

|anyway I do need to sleep|

|See you tomorrow. :) Night, love you.|

_[have a good sleep, love you too.]_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Full credit to RavensChrome for coming up with Canary's name. Thank you so much for the help!
> 
> Aaaayyyy! Almost there! Because I decided to do a day each chapter it was pretty easy to not constantly change my chapter count. :p
> 
> I doodled a couple of the early scenes. <https://kujo1597.tumblr.com/post/626270858899505152/transcript-for-the-first-picture-no-part-of-tulip>
> 
> Anyway, Book Three has been out for almost two weeks now. Maybe a full two weeks? Time isn't real. Whatever, I would still like specifics to be avoided in the comments section but you can vague stuff that happened. Such as me vagueing a little bit by saying that I made a little edit to the previous chapter to be more accurate to what actually happened.
> 
> EDIT: Went back a made a couple little changes, so if things don't match up with your memories then that's why. One of the changes was making clickable links. :O I never learned HTML; just a little bit of BB Code and well, guess which one actually gets used on the internet.
> 
> Anyway, the writing change I made was lopping off a mid-leg from Peter. He can still spider just fine; don't worry.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was going to say "no spider-related warnings" but there is a discussion about moulting.

The way woke Tulip up was more pleasant than it was the previous day.

Or maybe that was just because she wasn’t sore all over. Her legs felt like jelly but it was more than bearable.

“Good morning,” Lake said.

“Morning,” Tulip returned their greeting as she sat up and rubbed her eyes. She then put on her glasses to get a better look at Lake.

Who was smiling softly. “I’m glad you’re doing so much better today. It’s kind of a shame you have to leave this afternoon though.”

“Yeeeaaahhh…” Tulip sounded kind of down. “I had a lot of fun visiting you. I’m going to miss you.”

“I’ll miss you too. At least we’ll always have Discord to chat on.”

Lake stood up and walked over to Peter’s enclosure, they picked up the misting bottle and gave a wall a spritz. “Good morning Peter.” Even though he was currently in his nest working on moulting his shell Lake still spoke to him gently, and softly.

“Did you find his new nest?” Tulip asked as she looked in the enclosure too.

“Yep,” Lake pointed to it. “I think Peter finished it while we were sleeping. I looked into what to expect from a moulting spider and all I need to do until he’s done is mist his enclosure like I always do.”

“That’s cool. It’s too bad I won’t get to say goodbye to Peter though.”

“You can still say it, and he’ll hear you. But you won’t get to see his cute face again for a while.”

“Okay, before we leave I’ll give him a little goodbye,” Tulip smiled. “Anyway, you wanna head downstairs for breakfast?”

“Hey look at that, you almost sound like a morning person,” Lake crossed their arms with a smirk. “Yeah I can go for some breakfast.”

“Go figure,” Tulip shrugged, “when I don’t feel like dying I can manage to wake up at a decent time.”

Lake snickered. “That’s a fucking mood.”

The two talked as they walked into the kitchen, mostly about Peter’s moulting because Lake found it super cool how a spider can grow a new leg, which means Peter could too.

“So yeah, Peter will have eight legs soon, though his new one won’t be as functional as all the others, but it’s still really neat,” Lake sat down at the table and noticed Jesse’s face; they weren’t sure if he was horrified or fascinated.

“Good morning,” he gave a cheerful greeting. “So Peter’s getting a new leg, huh. That’s a cool superpower.”

“Hm…” Lake cocked their head in thought. “If Spider-Man can do everything a spider can, could he moult then? And regrow a missing limb?”

“NO! This is not breakfast talk, _please_ ,” Jesse’s reaction was stronger than anybody expected. “I _don’t_ need to think about Peter Parker shedding his skin.”

“Yeesh, alright,” that caught Lake very off-guard. “And yeah, good morning. Well… it’s less good for you now.”

“No,” Jesse sighed. “It’s fine. Peter being able to grow a new leg is actually pretty neat.”

“Are you going to still keep Peter after he gets his new leg?” Nate asked.

“Yeah, of course, he’s my little buddy,” Lake replied. “Besides, he’s too pampered to be out in the wild now.”

“Oh, okay, I’m happy to hear that,” Nate smiled. “I just wasn’t sure because you originally took him in because you were worried.”

“Nah,” Lake ruffled Nate’s hair. “Peter’s part of the family. He even has that one relative that barely tolerates him.”

Lake pointed at Jesse with a snicker.

“Hey! I think I’ve been getting pretty good about the whole spider thing,” Jesse put his hand to his chest. “I even made eye-contact with Peter recently. That’s a huge step for me.”

“I know, and I’m proud,” Lake smiled. “I do appreciate how hard you try with Peter.”

“Speaking of spiders…” Jesse looked slightly haunted. “Lake, why didn't you tell me about the spider in Bug Fables?”

“Uuuhhh... which spider?” Lake asked. “It can’t be the first boss, you’re well past that point.”

“The one that stands there looking like a friend.”

“OH!” Lake grinned. “That one got me too! Oh boy, it totally slipped my mind.” Lake held back their laughter as best they could.

“You asked me _which_ spider I meant. Are there more I need to know about?”

“Well... it's not technically a spider, there's this terrifying abomination that looks like the mix of a spider and a crab or scorpion or something near the end of the game.”

“Would you make fun of me if I asked you to do that part?”

“Naaahhh. Even I got scared there.”

Jesse looked like he was starting to have regrets in his choice of game.

“That entire area is genuinely terrifying,” Lake said. “They did such a great job with it; my heart was pounding the whole time. So if you do need to tap out then sure. But I would like it if you at least stayed and watched.”

“I can probably manage that,” Jesse said. “I mean, we'll see how scared I get when I get there. But it's nice to know I have that option. Thank you.”

“Oh it's no problem,” Lake smiled.

“So what does that other spider look like?” Tulip asked. “Can I see it?”

“Sure!” Lake pulled up the Wiki on their phone and passed it to Tulip.

“Oh boy, that is weird,” Tulip studied it. “I don't really find it scary though.”

“It is when it's running towards you,” Lake said. “Oh by the way Jesse, you're in luck. It only has one eye.”

“Yeah, I don't think that's gonna help,” Jesse said, he debated looking at the picture to know what to expect. He decided against it.

“So what about the one Jesse saw?” Tulip asked.

“Ah geeze, that'll take a bit for me to find a video of,” Lake started to scour the web. “That one you need to see in motion. Like Jesse said, it looks like a friend.”

“And then you walk up to it and find out that _it's not a friend_ ,” Jesse added. “It is _so_ not a friend.”

“Here it is!” Lake finally found the video and again, passed their phone to Tulip. Tulip watched the video.

“Oh! Yeah I would not have expected that.”

“You'd actually find stuff about the final boss really cool and interesting from an entomology standpoint. Once we get back to my room I'll talk about them.”

“Oh yeah, Lake, mom picked up some tomatoes while we were out yesterday.”

“Well I know what my breakfast is then,” Lake said. “I’m always up for a toast and tomato sandwich. You having one too?”

“I think I’ll have some cereal, and a grapefruit,” Jesse replied.

“Aw lucky, I miss grapefruit,” Lake mumbled. “So Tulip, Nate, you know what you’re having?”

“I think I’ll have peanut butter on toast again,” Tulip replied.

“I’ll just have some cereal,” Nate replied.

“Alright,” Lake stood up and walked over to the sink to wash their hands before tossing bread into the toaster.

“Good morning,” Whittney greeted everybody cheerfully.

And they all returned her greeting with enthusiasm.

“Have you all already decided on your breakfast?” Whittney asked.

“Yep,” Jesse replied for the group. “Lake’s getting theirs and Tulip’s started and I was about to get mine and Nate’s.”

“I want Captain Crunch!” Nate cheered.

“Alright,” Jesse said with a smile. “I’ll get you Captain Crunch. So mom, what are you having?”

“I’m not sure yet,” Whittney replied. “I might scramble some eggs for me and your dad. And then make some toast once Lake’s done.”

“And I almost am,” Lake called to Whittney while cutting up a tomato. “I’ll just toss some slices in for you if you want. I’m already here, right.”

“Thank you dear,” Whittney said warmly. “I appreciate it.”

“Ah it’s no problem,” the toaster popped and Lake put the toast on a couple plates and then threw some more bread in.

Lake grabbed the peanut butter and a knife and passed those to Tulip before piling their tomato slices onto their toast and sliced the sandwich.

“Kitchen’s all yours,” Lake said as they joined everybody at the table.

Jesse got up and prepared his and Nate’s breakfasts while Whittney pulled out the frying pan and spatula. His meal didn’t take long at all to get ready.

“So where’s dad?” Jesse asked.

“He’s just going over some paperwork,” Whittney replied. “You know him. He’ll smell the eggs and then come down.” Whittney snickered. “Lake’s the same way. When they smell their favourite food they come down from their room.”

“It’s kind of too bad I’m adopted so we can’t say that I take after dad,” Lake said with a smile.

“You two… so food motivated,” Whittney fondly shook her head. “There was one day where I baked cookies and had no idea that Lake was at home and taking a nap in their room. I assumed they went out with Jesse and Nate. Anyway, after I took the cookies out of the oven a certain somebody practically appeared out of nowhere.”

Lake let out an embarrassed chuckle.

“The worst part is, I can’t even tell you to wait so you don’t burn yourself,” Whittney barely contained her laughter.

“Ah but telling me that they’re for dessert works,” Lake paused and really thought about what Whittney had said. “Wait a minute… were they actually _not_ for dessert then?”

“No they were for dessert,” Whittney decided that it would be best to change the topic as quickly as possible now that Lake’s wheels were turning. “So Tulip, do you have anything that can’t sit in a car all day?”

“Not that I can think of,” Tulip replied. “Why?”

“I was thinking that it would be easier if you packed up before I drop you and the rest of the kids off to go shopping that way we can go straight to the airport afterwards.”

“That’s no problem at all. I did most of my packing last night and I can finish it off after I change.”

“Sounds like we have our plan.”

Once the eggs started to sizzle footsteps could be heard on the stairs. And soon afterwards Stephan appeared.

“Good morning!” He greeted everybody cheerfully. “I smell breakfast.”

Stephan gave Whittney a quick kiss on the lips. “Thank you hun for making breakfast.”

“You’re very welcome sweetie,” Whittney gazed into Stephan’s eyes with her hands on his chest.

“So dad, you heading to work soon?” Jesse asked.

“Yeah right after breakfast,” Stephan replied, he turned around the face Jesse while keeping a hand on Whittney’s hip. “Oh yeah, Tulip. You’re souvenir shopping today. Do you need a little extra money? You have a lot of people to buy for.”

“Oh!” Tulip blushed. “No, it’s fine. And I don’t really have that many people to buy for, just my mom, my dad, and Mikaya.”

“And yourself,” Stephan pointed it out. “You need some souvenirs too. Are you absolutely sure? It’s not a problem at all.”

“No, I’m definitely okay, thank you. My parents gave me plenty of money to spend.”

“Okay, well, have fun shopping then,” Stephan went into the kitchen and gathered up everything he needed for breakfast before sitting at the table and eating. Whittney joined everybody pretty much immediately after.

Breakfast passed with lively conversation about everybody’s plans for the day. The atmosphere was warm as it always was with the Cosay family.

Before he left for work Stephan gave Tulip a hug goodbye.

* * *

As Tulip was in the shower Lake changed and again, a certain letter caught their eye. They picked it up and took a long hard look before sighing. “I should just get it out of the way while Tulip’s here.”

With a deep breath Lake opened up the envelope and started to read the letter One-One wrote for them.

> Dear Rare-Foil Tulip
> 
> I hope you’re enjoying being at your new home! I seem to remember you going with your passenger. I’ve never had two people leave at the same time before. That was new. Even when there were some twins who were picked up at the same time they grew at different rates. 

“Is any part of that train not messed up?” Lake thought and as they read they noticed that there was the occasional sentence written smaller than the rest of the handwriting. Well... pincer-writing. 

> After Miss Tulip left, but before you did I made a new friend /more like employee/ her name is Amelia and she originally kidnapped me and put me in a car full of snow where I stayed for a few decades. But this is a growth train, she’s learning to be better by helping me fix some of the cars. So water under the bridge.

One-One rambled for a while about his work as conductor which Lake barely even skimmed. For a tiny robot without any hands he sure did write a lot. Lake couldn’t help being impressed by that.

> Something weird happened. One very large number went down and then a bunch of smaller ones in a group did. And then eventually -poof- they all were gone forever! /in a good way/

Lake read and re-read that a few times. 

“That couldn’t be The Apex, could it? But... Grace did make it off of the train. That must’ve been how.”

> There was also this denizen! She had a number just like you.

“I guess I really _did_ trick him,” Lake shook their head.

> But her number wasn’t cool and glowy like yours and your passenger’s. /it was obviously fake/ But she did have a number technically so I offered to get it working properly. But for some reason she didn’t want that. Oh well. Maybe in the future she’ll change her mind and work towards her exit.

Lake sighed. “God. He’s so flippant when it comes to the people he should be helping. But... he’s now more open to letting denizens get exits. That’s good.”

> Oh boy did Amelia make a mess of the train though. Even more than you did!

One-One rambled some more about all the weird cars Amelia made, that all meant basically nothing to Lake. Although their interest did get piqued when they read that Amelia made that denizen with a number, Hazel.

> Anyway, back to you! My punchy little rebel.
> 
> I never did wish you a safe trip to wherever it was you went. I’m so glad that the train helped you and your passenger out. Although I do still find it odd how he got on the train twice. That’s another first! You two are perfect for each other. 
> 
> Two more emotionally fulfilled passengers! /probably. i’m sure none of the monsters have scarred you for life. you’re alive though so woo./ I’d say it’d be lovely to see you back on my train but that would mean we didn’t do our job. 

Lake rolled their eyes. 

> Now that I think about it. I never did get to know you. So I don’t know why I’m writing this letter. Oh well!
> 
> For all I know you and Miss Tulip never did meet up again so you’re not even reading this. But I’m writing it and sending it anyway.
> 
> Goodbye forever!
> 
> One
> 
> /one/

“Well that was bizarre,” Lake said with a raised eyebrow. “But oddly sweet. I guess?” Lake sighed. “But it’s nice he’s grown. I do still kind of hate him though.”

After taking a deep breath Lake reflected on what they read about the group of numbers that went down.

“If that was Grace making things right with The Apex then maybe I should be more open to talking to her…”

Then the feeling returned, the one of fire-ants crawling under their skin, just an itchy and unpleasant irritation running up their spine and Lake felt like they’re about to cry.

“Nope. Still not ready.”

While Lake was starting to fold up the letter a piece of paper fell onto the floor. Lake bent down to pick it up and heard a knock at their door.

“Yeah come in!” Lake called.

Tulip entered the room all freshened up; she noticed the envelope Lake was holding and the paper on the floor. “Did you read One-One’s letter?”

“Yeah…” Lake replied awkwardly. “I thought I should do it while you were here so if I needed to talk about it, we could.”

“How was it?” Tulip asked.

“It… was interesting. Not _bad_ per say. But it didn’t really change my opinion on One-One. It did however make me rethink Grace a little.”

“Grace? From The Apex, right?”

“Right. Apparently her number dropped and so did all those kids’ numbers. And now they’re all off the train. So it sounds like she did some good in the end.”

“Do you think you’ll talk to her now?” Tulip approached the subject as delicately as she could.

Lake picked the paper off the floor and tossed the rest of the letter on their bed. “Nope. I still have a long way to go before that’s not triggering. I will talk to my therapist about it, and try to work up to possibly talking to Grace.”

“Makes sense,” Tulip wasn’t entirely sure what to say. “So, not to be nosey, what is that paper? It looked like you were already done reading the letter.”

“Uuuhhh…” Lake unfolded the paper. “It’s drawings. Of me, and you, and…” They squinted at a couple of them. “Jesse? This person has dark hair like he does but that’s the only resemblance.”

“Can I look?”

“Sure.”

Tulip walked over to where Lake was standing and looked over their shoulder at the drawings. She cracked up at the one that said, “Where’s her hair gone?”

“Yeah, I don’t get why he was so mystified by that,” Lake said.

“You look so angry in almost all of these,” Tulip snickered. “In the drawings One-One sent me we all had heart eyes. Then again, I was friends with him.”

“Why did he draw these anyway?”

“You made quite the impression on him. And well, we are kind of connected so you might have made him feel nostalgic too. And yeah, that one with the dark hair is definitely Jesse. And I think that one is a deer so it has to be Alan Dracula.”

Lake decided to not dwell on the one of them and Jesse with hearts over their heads more than they had to. One-One _did_ say that they were perfect for each other.

“Well, that was fun,” Lake put the drawings on their dresser. “One-One is a weird robot. He’s so sentimental.”

“That he is,” Tulip went up to her suitcase to pick out her clothes for the day.

“Hey Tulip, in the letter he wrote for you, did One-One mention a denizen with a number?”

“A denizen with a number?” Tulip muttered. “Yeah, I think he did. Amelia made her in her grief.”

“I didn’t remember the grief part. But I also only skimmed large sections of the letter.”

“Hazel sometimes turns into a turtle apparently.”

“A turtle?”

“Oh yeah… you never did find out. Yeah so Amelia likes turtles and she made that unfinished car with all the turtles in it. And…” Tulip swallowed her feelings, “she has a handkerchief with turtles all over it. Apparently every car she made has turtles in it somewhere. The last one she made has a tree where instead of leaves it was turtles.”

“So many turtles…”

“Turtles and jam. Her dead husband, Alrick, ate jam straight out of the jar with a spoon.”

“I don’t remember any jam…”

“The Unfinished Car had a huge puddle of jam in it, and that other car had jam instead of water.”

“Ew. Those are going to be some sticky showers. Just imagine, living a life where you’re constantly covered in jam and ants.”

Tulip shook her head. “What a hellish existence.”

“Well,” Lake walked to their door. “I’m going to help my mom out with her chores while you get changed. See ya in a bit.”

“Yep, see ya,” Tulip gave Lake a little wave and got one in return.

Lake cheerfully trotted down the stairs and took a swerve out the front door to join Whittney.

“Oh you don’t have to help me,” Whittney said. “You can spend time with Tulip.”

“She’s changing right now,” Lake said. “So I thought I’d hang out with you. Plus, I really want to show Canary to Tulip.”

“Alright,” Whittney laughed. “You’re really happy to have Tulip over, aren’t you?”

“You could tell, huh?” Lake blushed.

“I know my kids,” Whittney shrugged and passed a suet cake to Lake.

Lake opened up one of the bird feeders and put a suet cake inside. “It’s been fun hanging out with her again. I’d like to do it more often but we just live too far apart now, y’know.”

“It is a shame, and we can’t fly you to Minnesota either.”

“Damn metal detectors…”

“You might be able to make it through them, but it would be a hassle.”

“I suppose I’ll have to say goodbye to Tulip outside of the airport then.”

“Yeah. I’ll be going in with her to make sure she gets to the flight gate safely but unfortunately you’ll have to stay behind.”

“Sometimes being metal is such a pain the ass,” Lake sighed. “It’s too bad I don’t have the powers of a flec. If I did I’d be able to just pop up in Tulip’s house whenever I want.”

“You _know_ you’d scare her mom if you did that.”

“I mean, I would plan it out first. Just coming over to somebody’s house unannounced is just plain rude.” 

“That it is. By the way Lake,” Whittney pulled some money out of her pocket and gave it to Lake, “something tells me that you'll have better luck with convincing Tulip to accept money than I would.”

“You're probably right,” Lake accepted the bills being handed to them. “Tulip’s always been pretty stubborn when it comes to people. She’s gotten better of course, but still needs some work in that department.”

Whittney gathered up her things. “Tulip should be done changing soon so I’ll go inside and tell her to look out the front window. I’ll see you in a minute.”

“Cool, thanks,” Lake waved at Whittney as she went inside.

And when Lake saw Tulip in the window they picked up a small piece of suet cake and did a very specific whistle. Not even a minute later a large raven flew up and landed on Lake’s arm. They looked at Tulip and grinned at her amazement.

“Hey Canary, how are you today?” Lake spoke sweetly to the bird as they held out the food. Canary took it in her claw and started to tear into it with her curved beak. “Hungry, huh? Then again you’re always hungry.”

Canary stopped eating and took a look at Lake in that way that usually meant, “Hey, scratch my chest.” So Lake did and Canary put her wings out to the side. Once she was satisfied with the chest scratches she started to preen Lake’s hair.

Lake chuckled. “What? My hair not standing up enough for ya? You’d think a Steller’s jay or cardinal would have that criticism.”

After she was done her snack Canary flew off.

“Not even a goodbye,” Lake joked to nobody before walking into the house.

By the time Lake was done Jesse and Nate had joined Tulip and Whittney.

“That was really cool,” Tulip said with stars in her eyes. “I didn’t expect Canary to be so big."

“Yeah the ravens do get pretty big here,” Jesse said. “When I see a smaller one I squint and think ‘is that a crow?’”

“But it never is a crow,” Lake added. “The beak’s not straight enough. Anyway, I need to go wash my hands, and then I’ll join you at the car.”

* * *

“Make sure to text me when you’re ready to be picked up,” Whittney spoked to the kids through the open window of the car.

“Okay,” Jesse said.

“See you kids later,” Whittney gave them a wave and got one in return before she drove off.

“Well,” Jesse looked around. “We’re downtown, but I don’t really know where we can go souvenir shopping specifically. I guess we can just go into any old store we see.”

“Sounds good to me,” Tulip said as she texted to her mom that she was out shopping. “We have a few hours to kill.”

“We should try to focus on your souvenir shopping though,” Lake said as they checked Google maps. “But I don’t know what a souvenir shop would even be called.”

“But we do know where a good candy shop is that sells prickly pear candy,” Jesse said cheerfully. “You need to get at least four packs of the stuff. _At least_.”

Tulip laughed and started to walk down the street. “I’m not sure if I’ll get that many. I don’t even know if I’ll like them.”

“If you do I can mail you some in a care package,” Jesse said. “And then you can mail me some Minnesotan goodies.”

“Oooo, we totally forgot to pick up some salted nut rolls when we were in town,” Lake chimed in. “I’ve always wanted to try those; I’ve seen Mikayla eating some and really hoped that _somebody_ would too. But I just got raw onions instead.”

“I’m not going to apologize for my sophisticated palate,” Tulip didn’t even falter under Lake’s gaze.

“Tulip I only _just_ tried onion rings for the first time last week,” Lake continued to give Tulip a dirty look.

“Turns out Lake will eat anything if you put enough siracha on it,” Jesse shrugged.

“That shit’s good,” Lake said. “And it wasn’t just the siracha, it was also that they sounded nice and crispy when you bit into them.”

Lake noticed the bookstore they were in front of. “Hey I wanna pop in here. Don’t worry, I’ll be fast.”

“Sounds good to me,” Tulip agreed.

The door to the store was opened and the smell of coffee was in the air. Jesse inhaled with a smile.

“I like reading,” he said, “but my favourite part of coming in here is the café. There’s a bookstore in the mall that also smells delicious. But that one’s more pastries than coffee.”

“Do you drink coffee?” Tulip asked.

“Nope, I just like the smell. I run off of pure good vibes.”

“I figured as much.”

Lake listened to Tulip and Jesse talk as they looked at the shelves and as they walked down the line they spotted a familiar face.

“Ally!” Lake called out to her and got a wave in return. The two friends hugged. “It’s great to see you!”

“Hey Ally,” Tulip gave her a wave and Jesse did the same.

“Hey,” Ally smiled.

“Oh! Ally! You’re smart,” Jesse said. “We’re trying to think of souvenirs for Tulip. Is there anything Arizona is really known for? Other than the desert and cactuses. I honestly can’t think of anything.”

“Well…” Ally hummed in thought. “There are scorpion lollipops, painted rocks, and turquoise.”

“Turquoise?” Tulip repeated. “That’s perfect! My girlfriend was born in December. Thanks Ally!”

“You’re welcome,” Ally said with a warm smile. “I’m glad I could help.”

“So Ally, you wanna come shopping with us?” Lake asked.

Ally sighed, “I’m sorry, I’m out with my family so I can’t.”

“Aw that’s too bad,” Lake pouted. “But I understand, your dad isn’t the biggest fan of me.”

“He’s not?” Tulip asked.

“He’s worried about Lake being a bad influence on me,” Ally shook her head.

“I blame the juvie rumour,” Lake said.

“It’s not even that, is the thing; he never even heard any of the rumours,” Ally raised her eyebrow in irritation. “It’s because you look a little punky.”

“Seriously?” Lake couldn’t help laughing. “Look out Ally I might convince you to get a piercing and say swear words. OOoooOOOoo...”

Ally broke out into giggles. “The ship has sailed on that second one.”

“No! Ah I wish I was there! Was it my favourite bad word?”

“Nope, not that one. Your second favourite. I stubbed my toe and it just came out of my mouth. And around my dad of all people.”

“Damn Ally,” Lake’s expression became stern. “But seriously, did you get in trouble?”

“Nah, not really,” Ally replied. “I just got a ‘you don’t need to use such language’ from my dad.”

“Alright, but back to my looks; what’s he going to do once you start art school?”

“No clue, you’re pretty standard art student faire.”

“Well at least your dad is finally starting to warm up to me a little. I’ve been on my best behaviour around him.”

“It's kind of eerie seeing you so polite. ‘Yes Mr. Cooper.’ ‘Hello Mr. Cooper.’”

“Your last name is Cooper?” Tulip asked.

“Yep,” Ally replied.

“So your name is Alice Cooper, as in the singer. Who named you?”

Ally shrugged. “No clue. We never really talked about my name.”

“Oh yeeaaahh...” realization hit Lake. “Yeah that would be weird of her dad to name her that.”

“Alice Cooper is a heavy metal singer,” Tulip elaborated. “He used... or uses guillotines, fake blood, electric chairs, and you get the picture.”

“I see,” Alice looked thoughtful. “My name might just be a coincidence too.”

“True, true,” Tulip nodded.

“Honestly I feel like Tulip kind of wanted to flex her knowledge of old music,” Lake winked.

Tulip put her hands on her hips. “Oh you’re one to talk. You constantly talk about stuff from waaaaay before you were born.”

“Hey if I’m going to have that memory bleed issue I might as well have some fun with it,” Lake shrugged. “I enjoy seeing confused adults when I talk about things from the 60s.”

A stern built man who had just entered the aisle cleared his throat.

Lake stood up straight and did a little wave. “Hiiii Mr. Cooper.”

Then the thought crossed their mind, “Shit. Did that wave come across as sweet or awkward? I hope it was the latter.”

“Hello,” Mr. Cooper nodded his head in acknowledgement, “Lake. And Jesse. And...”

“Tulip,” she gave her name. “It’s nice to meet you. Mr. Cooper.”

He looked between Lake and Tulip multiple times, clearly trying to figure something out, or at least how to ask about it.

“Right, yeah,” Lake rubbed the back of their head. “Tulip is... my cousin.”

“Oh I see,” Mr. Cooper seemed convinced. “So you got in touch with your birth family?”

“Yep. It took a bit, but I did,” Lake wasn’t entirely lying.

“It’s been nice getting in touch with Lake,” Tulip said. “It’s kind of too bad I’m only here for a visit.”

“Are you from the Midwest like Lake is?” Mr. Cooper asked.

“Yep,” Tulip replied. “I’m actually flying back this afternoon.”

“So you should get going then,” the reason Mr. Cooper said that was obvious.

“I still wanna look around in this store some more,” Tulip decided to push her luck.

“Hm. Alright,” Mr. Copper still hung around, everybody was hoping he’d leave.

“Welp, let’s get back to shopping,” Jesse spoke up. “It was nice bumping into you two.”

He was always better at getting out of social situations than Lake.

“Uh, yeah,” Lake was more than happy to get the escape. “Bye Ally. Goodbye Mr. Cooper.”

“Bye,” Tulip waved at Ally and her dad before the group walked off.

And the second they were in the clear Tulip groaned out, “ _Geeze,_ and that was with him warmed up to Lake?”

“Unfortunately, yes,” Lake didn’t bother hiding their bitterness. “He used to not let me hang out with Ally at all outside of school. So that is an improvement.”

“Yikes.”

“I do think that part of the problem might be that he’s a cop.”

“I feel like that’s most of the problem,” Jesse chimed in.

“That would do it,” Tulip said. “You’re not exactly secretive about your feelings towards the police.”

“That is extremely true,” Lake nodded as they went back to browsing through the books. “Ah dammit! I totally forgot to tell Ally that I reached the part!”

“That might be for the best, I’ve seen you two talk about books enough to know that it can take a while,” Jesse said. “Remember, we have a time limit today.”

Lake frowned. “Right.”

After a couple purchases were made at the bookstore, and a few other places were browsed the group ended up in a store that had some Arizona t-shirts sitting out front. They figured it was their best bet at finding some souvenirs for Tulip to take home.

“I like this hoodie,” Tulip put it in the ‘maybe pile,’ it was a hoodie with the word ‘Arizona’ written on it in block letters coloured like a sun setting over a desert and a cactus next to the word. “It’s pretty decent quality. So I might pick it up for me and my dad.”

“For Andy?” Lake questioned. “I’d think you’d get him a hat. Hasn’t he started to try to hide a bald spot?”

Tulip snorted. “Okay, valid point. So maybe I’ll get a hoodie for my mom,” Tulip surveyed the store, “it doesn’t look like there’s any sweaters in here. But there are some long sleeved shirts.”

Jesse and Lake both scanned the aisles with Tulip looking for something nice for her to pick up.

With a giggle Jesse picked up a toy cactus that dances. “This is so cheesy and I love it.”

“Of course you do,” Lake laughed as they picked up a cactus plush holding a bottle of hot sauce. “I’m a little shocked we haven’t been in here before. You like kitschy things.”

“I think I’m going to buy this dancing cactus,” Jesse declared. “It sparks joy.”

“Mikayla might get a kick out of one of these,” Tulip started to look at the toys. “But I should check out the turquoise stuff first. Make sure I have enough money.”

“Tulip I can buy you a toy,” Lake pushily offered. “My dad offered to give you a little extra spending money. It’s fine.”

Tulip felt an unease in her stomach and unintentionally vocalized it.

“Hey c’mon,” Lake gently shook her. “Let people treat you! We’re friends, right? Friends treat friends to things. Me and Jesse constantly buy each other sweets, for example.”

“Alright, if I can’t afford a toy I’ll let you buy it for me,” Tulip gave in with a sigh.

“There go,” Lake clapped Tulip on the back before moving on to another section of the store which sold hot sauce. “Hmmm… I didn’t think Arizona was known for hot sauce.”

“I guess it makes sense,” Jesse shrugged. “Hot peppers grow pretty well here. Are you going to get a bottle?”

“Probably not,” Lake replied. “We have some at home that I should finish off. It’s not like we don’t live here so we can get some whenever.”

“Tulip,” Jesse addressed her. “Will you get some?”

“Nah… I don’t know anybody who really uses hot sauce,” Tulip replied before moving on to the candy section. “So you said prickly pear candy is good?”

“It is,” Jesse looks at the package Tulip was pointing at. “But I never tried that brand. There’s a candy shop down the street that sells a super good brand.” And then he whispered. “For way cheaper.”

“Okay, I’ll put this back then,” Tulip noticed a scorpion encased in sugar. “Wow, Ally was not kidding. This is just, _an entire scorpion_.”

“You buying it?” Lake asked.

“Probably not, but it is cool looking,” Tulip stared at it some more and mentally added it to her ‘maybe pile.’

And then, she spotted it, the section she was looking for. A bunch of turquoise jewelry, varying in price. Tulip kept her budget in mind and picked up a small and pretty necklace.

“I like this, Mikayla’s not super into jewelry so something simple like this would be good,” Tulip smiled.

“It’s pretty,” Lake said. “I think she’ll like it.”

“Have you decided on anything for yourself?” Jesse asked, he was on self-appointed Tulip self-care duty. 

“I think I’ll just be basic and buy a hoodie for myself,” Tulip replied. “I like hoodies and that’s a pretty nice looking one. So with the necklace and hoodie, a hat for my dad, and either a shirt or a painted rock for my mom, and the candies, I think that’s everything.”

“What about the dancing cactus?”

“Yeah that too, Mikayla would think it’s cute. Hey Lake…”

“Hm?” Lake made a noise of acknowledgement.

“So, I would like one for myself too but I can only afford one. Would your offer still stand?”

“Yeah of course.”

“Thanks Lake. I’ll try to repay you.”

“Don’t worry about it. Just being able to spend time with you is payment enough.”

Jesse gave Lake a big goofy grin and they elbowed him in the stomach.

“Hey I can be sappy too,” Lake’s face was completely covered in a blush.

The group circled back to the previous sections and Lake and Jesse helped Tulip carry her loot.

The cashier totaled up the items and they were paid for and everybody left while carrying bags.

“Now we need to figure lunch out, it’s already noon,” Jesse said. “There’s a nice little place near here and Lake, you remember what it is?”

Lake went over the area, they didn’t come there too often. “Wait… is it the one with the really good paninis?”

“It is!”

“YES! We need to go there! Tulip you’re getting a panini.”

“Alright,” Tulip knew better than to fight Lake when they were _this_ pushy. “I’ll try the panini.”

And with that, lunch was decided.

The quaint little restaurant was only a couple doors down from the souvenir shop. When Lake held open the door Tulip noticed that it was just a tiny little place that could only fit four tables in it. The atmosphere was warm, and Tulip caught herself briefly thinking that it’d be nice to take Mikayla to a place like this. And her face turned a little red.

“Heh,” Lake looked at Tulip like the cat that ate the canary. “Yeah, a lot of people go on dates here.”

“How do you always know?” Tulip squeaked. “Every time I think about something involving Mikayla you just know.”

“Tulip, you’ve pretty much always have had a crush on her, ever since the third grade; I know your Mikayla face.”

“My _Mikayla face?”_ Tulip sounded as embarrassed as she looked.

“Lake’s right, you do get a certain look on your face when you talk about Mikayla,” Of course Jesse only made things worse. “It’s really sweet. You’re in love.”

With a grumble Tulip quickly ducked into the restaurant, her face felt like it was on fire. This was Lake’s cue to maybe stop teasing her so much.

Of course teasing wasn’t entirely off the table.

“So the menu is up there,” Lake pointed to above the counter. “Thankfully I already know what I’m getting. And you kind of know, you just have to pick a panini. They’re all good. So Jesse, what are you getting?”

“I dunno, I’m in the mood for a wrap,” Jesse replied. “Have you decided which sandwich you want?”

“Yeah I think so. Are there new ones on the menu?”

“One of those days?”

“Yep. I can’t read shit right now.”

“Got it. Nope, nothing new since we were last here,” Jesse turned his head. “How ‘bout you Tulip. You know what you’re getting?”

“I think I got it,” Tulip replied. “This is a relatively small menu and you keep insisting on one type of item.”

“You don’t actually _have to_ get it if you don’t want to,” Lake clariefied. “It’s just my favorite thing here.”

“Nah I want to. You have a pretty good idea of what I like.”

“It’s be sad if I didn’t,” Lake said with a shrug before they walked up to place their order.

“Well I mean tastes do change,” Tulip then placed her order.

“Are you still a picky eater?” Lake asked.

“I didn’t think I ever was…” Tulip said as she got out of Jesse’s way so he could place his order.

“I beg to differ,” Lake pulled cash out of their wallet and handed it to Jesse.

“Thank you Lake,” Jesse noticed Tulip digging through her change purse and he held up his hand. “No, no, it’s fine. I’m treating you. Lake bought you the toy, I’m buying you lunch.”

“Thanks Jesse,” Tulip said.

The kids picked out a table and sat down at it and talked until their order was delivered. Everything smelled delicious.

Naturally Lake didn’t even think before biting into their food. Their tongue couldn’t get burned. “I can’t wait for you to try this. You got the same kind as me, right? The southwestern chicken?”

“Yep,” Tulip replied, she, had a fleshy tongue and didn’t want to risk burning it so she waited.

Jesse’s wrap was only a little warm inside and he took a big bite out of it before speaking. “So after lunch we should quickly swing by the candy store and then call or text my mom.” He licked some dressing off of his fingers. “We don’t have time to do much else. The airport is sorta far away.”

“Sound good to me,” Tulip finally felt like it was safe to bite into her panini, and it was as delicious as Lake made it sound.

“It’s good, right?” Lake easily recognized Tulip’s expression.

“It is! I’m glad you recommended it. I wonder if there’s a nice café like this in my town. Or maybe even one of the neighbouring ones.”

“There probably is,” Jesse said. “I think everywhere has something like this hidden somewhere. You just need to keep an eye out. If I remember correctly, me and Lake just kinda ended up here because I wanted something to drink.”

“Yeah and then I read the menu and decided I wanted a snack,” Lake added. “So we tried out the food and really liked it. But it was busy when we popped in that first time so we just stood outside the door and ate.”

“That was also one of the few times ‘Blake’ didn’t get said or written on my drink,” Lake smirked. “It was nice.”

“Sometimes I think that they get your name wrong on purpose just to mess with you,” Tulip looked amused. “One time ‘Violet’ was written on my drink.”

“Violet? At least it was a type of flower, I guess,” Lake said.

“Yeah I guess, but I still think it was intentional,” Tulip took a drink. “So anyway, Jesse, are you still a chronic procrastinator?”

Lake barely stifled their laughter. “ _Yeah Jesse._ Are you?”

“It’s not procrastinating, I swear,” Jesse protested. “But yes, I know what you asking and no, I haven’t finished my homework. I did start it a few nights ago though. I’m just taking a short break.”

“I have no idea how you’re not scraping by,” Lake narrowed their eyes at Jesse. “You do somehow keep on top of things so I’m not giving you too much shit about it.”

Jesse’s pocket buzzed and he pulled out his phone and read the text. “I graduate next year and why fix what isn’t broken? Oh by the way, mom is on her way to pick us up. I’ll tell her to meet us by the candy store.”

“Alright, we don’t need to scarf down our food at least,” Lake took another big bite. “But we will have to get moving right after eating. Wait, can you bring food and drink into an airport? I’ve never been in one.”

“Yep, as long as nothing exceeds three or so ounces,” Tulip replied, she was pretty much done her panini. Only a couple bites were left so she polished it off.

And not to be the last to finish Lake did the same. And Jesse was close behind. After taking a quick breather everybody threw away their trash and went to the candy store.

It was another small place, the walls were stacked with candy from top to bottom; not even Jesse could reach it all. Everything was bright and colourful. If Tulip didn’t have to take a plane home she would have loved to fill a few bags with sweets. But she didn’t want to risk them spilling in her suitcase or carryon luggage. So Tulip picked up four bags of prickly pear candies and a couple other things she didn’t recognize from her home town. And by the time the kids were done Whittney was parked by the store. She gave them a smile and a wave before they climbed into the car.

“Did you have a fun day?” Whittney asked Tulip.

“I did!” She replied. “I bought souvenirs for everybody and some candy too. I need to figure out how to divvy out the candy. I didn’t think about that in the store.”

“I saw you guys carrying a lot of things,” Whittney said. “Is it all for Tulip?”

“Nah, I got a dancing cactus for myself,” Jesse replied.

“I bought a book and bookmark. And I also bought some candy,” Lake replied. “It’s all going in my room and Jesse, if you want some you’ll have to ask nice.”

“Don’t worry, I know the rules about the Lake Candy Stash,” Jesse winked at them. “Oh yeah! Tulip I can’t believe we never asked about this. What was your favourite car on the train? We’ve been focusing too much on the bad. There was some good. I’ll go first, mine was prrroooobably… The Musical Car.”

“Of course it was,” Lake shook their head. “But I have to admit. It was kind of fun.”

“It’s still the only time you ever sang with me,” Jesse said cheerfully. “I’ll always hold that memory close to my heart.”

“Yeah that was fun, I have to admit,” Lake blushed, they wanted to swiftly move on. “So what was your favourite car, Tulip?”

“Oh! Can I say Corginia?” Tulip asked.

“Sure,” Lake shrugged. “I feel a little like that’s cheating because that’s where you met Atticus. But I’m sure all those corgis were super cute.”

“Okay, fair,” Tulip gave her answer more thought. “My second choice would have to be the Straight-Up Italy Car.”

“Oh yeah Nancy! You really hit it off with her. I think I saw her in that carnival car. She was selling pasta, and I mean, you can't exactly forget a giant plant person.”

“Nancy wasn't really _giant_ she's only a little taller than me. Well, pretty much, it's kinda hard to tell when somebody's head is a rose.”

“Wai-wai-wait, hold up,” Jesse jumped in before he got _completely_ lost. “Straight-Up Italy Car?”

“It was straight-up Italy," Lake replied with a shrug as Tulip nodded right next to them.

“Mmmmkay,” that wasn't the strangest thing Jesse had ever seen. “Continue.”

“So Nancy's pasta business is taking off?” Tulip asked excitedly.

“Seems that way. I'm glad you managed to defeat that evil granny.”

“What a fight...” Tulip looked nostalgic. “It's good to know Nancy's doing alright. So that car had a bunch of denizens in it. Did you see any others I met?”

“I saw some corgis, and that crystal guy.”

“Did you see a little patchwork rabbit stuffie?”

“Patchwork rabbit...” Lake tried their best to recall anybody like that. “Wait! Yeah! I did, they were carrying around one of those weird things that like to slip out of your hand.”

“You saw Khaki Bottoms! I'm sooo happy to know he's safe.”

“Was he always missing an ear?”

Tulip's eyes fell. “No, he wasn't.”

“Well, he seemed alright without it, he has a little patch where it used to be. I mean how did he hear in the first place, right? Even on a real bunny the floppy ears don’t aid in hearing. He's probably like a snake anyway, and hears with an inner-ear of sorts.”

“That honestly sounds kind of cursed and I hate it. But I'm glad he seemed fine.”

“Well I didn't see any ear holes, did you?”

Tulip thought back to the fun part of The Ball Pit Car. “No, I can’t say that I did. And imagining it, ear holes are actually more cursed than embedded snake ears.”

“So Lake, what was your favourite car?” Jesse asked.

“That’s a tough one,” Lake hummed in thought. “Saying The Pencil Bank Car would be easy because that was my first car after Tulip freed me. So not that one… I saw so many cool cars. Before the Flecs came and ruined everything I really liked The Black Market Car. It was really cyberpunk and awesome. I wish I could have explored it more but the slug person selling passenger tapes decided to look at me with one of those jeweller’s lens things. I didn’t smash and paint it fast enough. Still my favourite car though.”

“I wish I could have seen it, that sounds cool,” Tulip said.

“Yeah!” Jesse exclaimed. “Ah man, you got to see so much cool stuff, like flying snakes, giant jellyfish, kaiju, and so on. My first car was living hills which was cool.”

“Did they sing?” Whittney asked, ready to make a reference.

“No they weren’t alive with the sound of music,” and Jesse beat her to the punch.

Whittney cracked up and so did Jesse. “I raised you well.”

She pulled into a parking lot and chose a spot before turning off the car.

“Well, we’re here,” Whittney said as she popped the trunk. “Are you going to say your goodbyes outside of the car?”

“I think so,” Jesse unbuckled his seatbelt. “It’s easier to give hugs that way.”

“I agree,” Lake followed Jesse.

“Definitely,” and Tulip got herself unbuckled and stepped out of the car.

Everybody else exited the vehicle and sure enough, it didn’t take long for Jesse to walk up to Tulip with his arms out to the side.

“You didn’t even let me grab my luggage,” Tulip said with a giggle as she hugged Jesse.

“I just couldn’t wait for my goodbye hug. It was really great having you over.”

“It was great visiting you. Thanks for having me over.”

“Any time.”

The two broke up their hug.

“Alright Tulip, as your going away present I will let you know where Canary's name came from,” it was Lake’s turn.

“You're so kind,” now this time Tulip meant to be sarcastic.

“And just for that, I'm back to giving you a hint. She's a black bird, named Canary.”

“Son of a gun!” Tulip shouted. “How'd I not see the Black Canary thing? I was thinking Marvel this whole time because you hinted that it's like Peter's name.”

Lake chuckled as they stretched their arms out for a hug. “I'm going to miss you.”

“I’ll miss you too,” Tulip said as she gave Lake their hug, that one didn’t last as long as her hug with Jesse, she stood back with her hands on Lake’s shoulders and a smile on her lips. “I’m really happy for you. You have a great family.”

“Heh,” Lake’s response brought back some memories of when they first went their own separate way. “Okay. Good luck Tulip Prime.”

Tulip shook with a suppressed giggle and she offered her hand. “Good luck Lake.”

Lake gave Tulip a handshake, a reference that puzzled the others in the group.

Although Lake decided that they couldn’t leave things at that again; they pulled Tulip into a tight hug and she patted them on the back with a smile before separating.

“Ready to go?” Whittney asked as she held out Tulip’s backpack for her.

“Yep, I’m ready,” Tulip replied.

“No! Wait! One last selfie!” Jesse shouted and he clumsily pulled his phone out of his pocket.

And the picture was taken by Jesse, it commemorated a memory that would last a lifetime.

Before heading into the airport with Whittney Tulip sent a text to her loved ones with the photo attached.

|See you soon.|

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oohhh my goodness me. This fanfic is done! I'm going to miss writing these nerds hanging out. ;_; Of course there's always the possibility for more in the future! 
> 
> So, I have a question for anybody who uses a screen reader, for this chapter I used subtext in One-One's letter. If it ended up sounding like a garbled mess please tell me and I can do my best to choose something else to do. I put in the slashes because when I did a little test with my iPad's screen reader the Sad-One text sounded exactly like Glad-One's.
> 
> Anyway! Back to celebrating! Thank you so much for reading this densely-packed fanfic! I had a lot of fun writing it and I hope you had fun reading it.
> 
> Oh yeah! The cool entomology stuff related to the final boss of Bug Fables. Spoilers, obviously. [Click Here](https://evajellion.tumblr.com/post/623814621710712832/about-the-wasp-king-huge-bug-fables-spoilers)


End file.
